


Rupert

by itallstartedwithdefenestration



Category: Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier, Rope (1948)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - New Orleans, Historical Inaccuracies, M/M, background Kenneth/Janet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 11:46:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 50,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15460683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itallstartedwithdefenestration/pseuds/itallstartedwithdefenestration
Summary: While on vacation with his aunt in Miami, Phillip Morgan meets the attractive, wealthy, and mysterious Brandon Shaw. Everyone says he can't get over his husband's death. But the closer Phillip gets to Brandon, the less he understands.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based off Daphne du Maurier's _Rebecca_ , both the novel and the Hitchcock adaptation. However, you don't have to have read or seen either to understand the plot.
> 
> For the convenience of this au, gay marriage is legal in 1938. Also, while the real Lake Pontchartrain Causeway was not opened until 1956, it exists here. 
> 
> New Orleans is absolutely my favorite city, and I'm pleased to finally be able to put my boys there.

**PART I**

Phillip first met Brandon because his great-aunt varied her routine.

It was their third day in Miami. As it was the early spring the city was not yet overrun with either heat or tourists, as it would be in June, and so after a brief rather uneventful stay in Charlotte, she’d booked them a train ride south, and they arrived in the first week of April. The hotel where they were staying was on the Atlantic coast and set almost directly in the heart of the city. From his room Phillip could see the ocean where it spread tidal and endless down to the horizon. Vacationers on the beach in striped suits, wide-brimmed hats, with their not-quite tanned legs stretched out before them in the sand. The sun striking pale golden light off the water. It was beautiful. He only wished he could want to be here.

The night previous his aunt had stayed up well past one o’clock “playing the slots”, as she termed it, in the casino adjacent to their hotel. Now it was nearly nine in the morning before she knocked three impatient raps on the door that joined her room to his, and through the wood called:

“Be ready in fifteen minutes, Phillip. God almighty I cannot believe you let me sleep this late.”

“All right,” Phillip called back, in his most neutral tone possible. It was not his job to wake her; she had her tinny alarm clock. Privately he would have preferred her to sleep in anyway, since the continental breakfast was only available until ten in the morning and afterwards they could have just ordered food to their rooms and Phillip could have gone on reading _Brideshead Revisited_ without interruption, pressed down into his sheets, feet on the wall. But she was up and he could hear her moving around in her room in her brisk, sharp fashion; when she knocked again he opened the door, and together they went downstairs and into the hotel lobby. There were a number of tables set near a buffet line and his aunt made immediately for one nearest the elevators, so she could watch everyone. She sat without immediately taking her breakfast; it was her custom, she thought it improper, gauche, to head straight for the food. Phillip sat too, and she eyed him for a moment, disapproving—not of any one thing in particular, but of his whole self, his dull suits that didn’t quite fit, the thick mess of hair she was always telling him to have cut… Eventually she cleared her throat, she said:

“Well, at least you didn’t bring that book. I can assure you I don’t know where you get that from, that love of reading.” The way she said it made it sound as though this were a fault Phillip would someday overcome. “Your father—” But then she broke off, her eyes traveling across the room, her heavily rouged lips falling a little open. With her head tilted in the mid-morning sun coming through the high glass windows to their left she looked like a curious bird. Phillip braced one hand against his thigh beneath the table. He could tell by her posture she was going to make a scene. And presently she cleared her throat and nudged him, hard, in the arm.

“You see that man over there?” she asked, pointing mostly with the jut of her chin in the direction of the elevators. “That’s Brandon Shaw.” The name sparked dim familiarity, like a long-forgotten memory immersed in smoke. “They say he lost his husband in the most deeply tragic way last spring.” Her eyelids fluttered; she was enjoying some internal drama. “He’s never been able to move past it, not in all this time.”

Phillip looked at the man she was indicating with her tremulous nose. He was tall, pale, with a high forehead and clean-cut jaw. There were these dark circles beneath his eyes and hollows under his cheekbones which gave his face the appearance of a gorgeously carved skull. In the light his hair was a soft rich brown, golden at the edges, and swept back from his forehead.

Phillip’s aunt without taking her eyes off Brandon’s form said, “Go get us some breakfast, would you? You know what I like—I’m going to run and see if I’ve received any post since yesterday.” Her hands were fiddling restlessly with her purse; Phillip wondered if she was going to make a detour to the bathroom as well, to apply more makeup, so that she could look acceptable in Brandon’s presence. She set her mouth for a moment, indecisively, as though struggling with whether to speak to him now. After a moment she got up from her place and walked quickly in the direction of the mailroom. Phillip sighed; it was going to be another long day. He watched Brandon for a moment as he stopped to speak to someone, then he got up too, and headed to the buffet line. For himself he picked out an orange, and a piece of toast—for her he got waffles, and oatmeal, and a grapefruit. And then beside him he felt the brief warm press of another arm as someone leaned over to take up an apple, and an unfamiliar voice said:

“Excuse me.”

Phillip looked over. It was Brandon Shaw of the tragic past. Up close he was—god, even lovelier, if that were possible. He’d cut himself shaving; there was a faint red line in the shadow of his jaw, at the soft space of his neck. When he looked at Phillip it felt not unlike being struck by lightning. Phillip could not believe he hadn’t noticed before the color of Brandon’s eyes, rich as his suit, like shards of glass in moonlight.

“It’s all right,” said Phillip, quiet.

Brandon smiled a little, more with his eyes than the rest of his face. He looked tired, strained. “You look familiar,” he said, “have you been here several days?”

“Three,” said Phillip, watching Brandon take a few links of sausage. He glanced in the direction of the post office. “Probably you’ve seen me with my aunt at the casino; it’s all she ever wants to do here.”

“No,” said Brandon, turning from the buffet. He had a curious accent, northeastern upper class elite smoothed neatly over the drawn vowels of the South. He glanced at Phillip and interrupted himself first to say, “Do you mind if I sit with you?” and then when Phillip shook his head, surprised: “Where are you sitting?” and followed Phillip to his table.

“I don’t think I caught your name,” he said, as they sat down.

“Phillip Morgan,” said Phillip. Brandon set down his plate, held out his hand. He had very long, clever fingers. Phillip noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

“Brandon Shaw,” he said, still in that low hoarse voice. When they shook it was another shock of something, heat or electricity or else just the racing of Phillip’s heart against his radial artery. Brandon’s skin was warm and a little dry despite they were in Florida; Phillip could see the ragged edges of his nails where he’d evidently bitten them.

Brandon said, “I think—maybe you were on the beach yesterday,” and Phillip agreed that he had been, briefly at noon while his aunt took a shower, and fought back a blush at the idea of Brandon seeing him in his swimming trunks.

“Perhaps after breakfast—” Brandon began, but then of course Phillip’s aunt arrived, with her mail shoved bulging into her purse. When she saw Brandon already sitting with Phillip her eyes widened; her mouth curved into a greedy little shape Phillip disliked. She swept up her coat and sat, holding out her hand. Her bracelets slid together on her forearm.

“Hello, Mr. Shaw,” she said. “I’m Felicity Campbell. I knew your mother several years ago.”

There was a tense line forming between Brandon’s eyebrows. When he shook her hand it was with perceptible reluctance—although Phillip’s aunt was blessedly already consumed with the idea of her own breakfast, and did not seem to notice.

“I don’t recognize your name,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“I went several times to her shop on Royal Street,” she said.

Brandon’s eyes flickered momentarily to Phillip’s. “All right,” he said. That still doesn’t mean I know you, his tone said. Phillip bit into his toast so he wouldn’t smile.

Then Brandon himself smiled, smoothing the moment over. His face transformed entire when he smiled, it took years away. “Let me order you a glass of champagne.”

She blinked. “Mr. Shaw, I never take champagne at nine in the morning,” although Phillip had certainly seen her going at it with her bridge club just the month previous.

Brandon never lost that smile. If it didn’t quite reach his eyes Phillip thought it was subtle enough to be unnoticeable. “What about a mimosa?” he said, and then, before Phillip’s aunt could continue her protests: “My mother takes them on occasion with breakfast.”

“Oh,” said Phillip’s aunt, and smiled, pacified. “Oh, well in that case—”

He called the waiter over. They seemed to have placed Brandon on some important level here, for it wasn’t long after that the mimosa arrived, pretty pale orange in its glass. Phillip’s aunt sipped it with that same simpering grateful expression she gave to everyone who showed the slightest interest in her.

“I wonder that you could bear to leave New Orleans,” she said, after a time, “for a place like Miami.” Pronouncing the word with cold disdain, as though not twelve hours previous she hadn’t been extolling its virtues, remarking on the Atlantic in moonlight.

Something passed over Brandon’s eyes—there and gone again. Phillip watched the smile falter. “I’ve been traveling all over,” he said. “Not just here.”

“Oh?” She wiped her mouth on her napkin. She’d attacked the waffles with voracious intent. “For how long?”

Brandon was carving at his sausage, not looking at either of them now. “About six months,” he said, and Phillip remembered his aunt’s words: _They say he lost his husband in the most deeply tragic way last spring._ And too he thought he remembered the newspapers covering it, even in Arcadia, and Brandon’s face in grainy unfocus beside another man’s, Phillip could not remember it now, and a gray washed-out photograph of some lake…

“I think travel is just wonderful,” she was saying, her rings clinking on her mimosa, “so healthy for the mind and the soul, you know. Have you been abroad? Of course I’ve been many times to Europe and even once to China, although I didn’t like it much, the food was dreadful… My nephew here accompanies me now everywhere—” acknowledging Phillip with a brief nod—“because I am nearly seventy, but I could never give it up.”

“I was recently in Italy,” Brandon said. Phillip couldn’t help picturing him at the Mediterranean, glowing on the pale beach, with the water as sharp as his eyes, and the sun casting white light upon his skin. A bottle of wine in his hand, and a wedge of cheese, and somewhere in the distance a violin would be playing…

Phillip’s aunt had opened her mouth to speak, but Brandon shockingly had turned to Phillip, and did not notice. “How are you liking Miami?” he asked him.

“It’s all right,” said Phillip, sinking his thumbnail into the thick skin of the orange. He watched Brandon watch him do it, a new expression in his eyes: a startling, intense gaze like a snake ready to strike. “Bit loud, though.”

Brandon’s mouth twitched. But Phillip’s aunt, spoon scraping at the bowl of oatmeal, said a bit forcefully:

“The trouble with Phillip is he was raised on a farm, you know. In the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma. So he doesn’t know how to appreciate proper cities.” She shot him a look that was unsettlingly close to his father’s. “Wherever we go, all he wants is to sit in his room and read.”

“There are a considerable number of benefits to reading,” Brandon said, turning back to her. “Such as an insight into culture.”

He spoke quietly; there was a light strain on his words, as though he was picking them with care. His jaw was tense. Whatever charm he’d called up to get Phillip’s aunt talking was gone. As always she was oblivious; she hummed an assenting noise without really agreeing before chattering on in great detail about her own travels, blind to the way Brandon sat with that same glazed-over expressionless mask on his face as did most people who encountered Felicity Campbell when she was in her element. Phillip let her voice drift over him as he had done for months now, staring at the torn mess of his orange on its plate, tasting the sharp wakeful flavor of citrus.

Eventually Brandon glanced down at his watch—pearl face, gold band—and when she took a breath between Montenegro and Algiers he said:

“I have an appointment at eleven.”

Her eyes shot over from where they had fixed in memory on some distant point on the wall behind Phillip’s head. “You’re not leaving—”

Brandon stood, he took up his plate. He cast a quick, sideways look at Phillip which Phillip could not interpret and he said, “I’m afraid I must. It was very nice to meet both of you.” Then before Phillip’s aunt could say anything else he was gone.

She exhaled noisily, and bit into the last of her grapefruit. “My goodness,” she said, sounding a bit flustered. “Can you—I mean after that initial nicety—” holding up the mimosa, which now was mostly empty—“he hardly spoke at all. He hardly looked at me.”

You never shut up long enough for him to, Phillip did not say. “You told me he lost his husband less than a year ago,” he said, and his aunt gave him a look.

“That’s no excuse,” she said. “If I haven’t taught you that by now—” But then she glanced at her own watch, and rising from her seat she said, “Go to the front desk and call a taxi, would you? We have to be at the theater soon if we want to avoid the crowds.”

Phillip sighed. When he approached the front he saw for a moment Brandon standing in an alcove with his eyes turned upwards towards the ceiling and that same strange, exhausted expression he’d worn upon first entering the lobby. Phillip thought of walking over, of apologizing for his aunt’s forwardness—but then Brandon shook his head like to clear it of something and pushed open the door leading to the stairwell. He disappeared into the hotel and Phillip tried very hard not to think about the way he’d said _perhaps after breakfast_ because it was clear he’d never see him again, not now that he would be associating Phillip with his aunt. It would just become one more of the thousand things he’d had to resolve himself to accept in the past months. He stepped forward and rang the bell for the desk clerk.

~

Apparently someone at the theater had been sick or else they’d just been traveling for too long—in any case when Phillip woke the following morning it was to the sound of his aunt sneezing violently and repeatedly through their joining door. She had a light fever and a badly sore throat and it was determined by a local physician not long after that she didn’t need to be in the hospital but she did need to stay in bed—which suited her fine as she immediately began placing calls to the friends she’d made in Miami and also a few in surrounding cities. Phillip was ready to close himself off in his own room and spend the next few days reading Waugh and listening to various radio programs, but his aunt continued to call to him for things, or else just to criticize him for sitting still, and several hours in Phillip gave up and headed down to the lobby. The last of the breakfast things had been cleared away so he walked over to the casino and got a coffee before sitting on the sundeck behind the hotel. And not long after he was startled to find Brandon Shaw coming up from the parking lot. He began drinking in case Brandon didn’t want to speak to him, but when Brandon’s eyes flicked over towards the pool and caught sight of Phillip his face—Phillip didn’t want to say it relaxed, but it lost some of its usual tension, and a moment later they were sitting beside each other in the pale lounge chairs with the sun glinting off the chlorinated water and the expansive sound of the ocean behind them.

“Where’s your aunt today?” Brandon asked.

“She’s sick,” said Phillip, “she’s in bed for a few days.” He hesitated. “I couldn’t stand her griping so I came down here.”

Brandon was watching at Phillip’s face with that same unusual intensity he’d shown for a moment yesterday. “Still on you about your reading?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Brandon said—actually he sort of scoffed it, with a twist to his mouth like he tasted something foul. He rolled his eyes—they were fever-bright, glowing like the earth after a thunderstorm. “Reading is a necessary part of our s-society. Or doesn’t she understand that?” It sounded strangely like the first sincere thing he’d said since Phillip had met him the day previous. It also sounded like someone else’s words. But Phillip couldn’t understand why. Anyway he seemed a little flustered at having stuttered and to keep him from embarrassment quickly Phillip said:

“She came originally from Scotland with nine brothers, so anything artistic she sees as soft and unnecessary.” Which of course encompassed nearly all of Phillip’s interests. But it wasn’t worth complaining over—he’d lived with it so long now he’d had to get used to it, bury it beneath the raw earth on the farm or it would’ve suffocated him along with everything else.

Brandon had an odd expression on his face. “How can you stand that?” he asked. He sounded genuinely frustrated—it was strange, because they didn’t know each other, and it should have felt more intrusive, rude, for him to be talking about Phillip’s aunt like this. But Phillip found he didn’t mind. “How—for her to take you all these places when she doesn’t even appreciate culture, when she d-doesn’t even understand the value behind the things you want to do.”

“She doesn’t see travel the same way,” Phillip explained. He watched Brandon’s hand flex on his thigh and felt a momentary and rashly impulsive urge to close his own hand around it. “I think it has something to do with the amount of attention she gets wherever we go.” He bit his lip. “Books and paintings don’t compliment her makeup.”

This at last made Brandon laugh. It was like a flame caught—very sharp bright staccato sound. That intensity in his eyes faded back a little, or shifted to the side, or something, and his shoulders relaxed.

“I didn’t mean…” he began, after a moment. “That is—I hope I didn’t offend you.”

“No,” said Phillip, setting his coffee on the cement.

“What, uh.” Brandon took a breath. He seemed to be deliberately steadying himself. “What books do you like?”

“Right now I’m reading _Brideshead Revisited,_ ” Phillip said. “And a few weeks ago I finished _Frankenstein._ ”

Brandon was smiling just at the corner of his mouth. “That’s an unusual combination.”

“I’m an unusual person,” said Phillip. Afterwards he could hardly believe he’d said it, because it wasn’t at all something he’d normally have even thought of, but something about the way Brandon was looking at him emboldened him, or perhaps it was just the warmth of the sun against his neck, or the fact that for the first time in six months he was alone… It made Brandon laugh again, showing the line of his throat.

“I’m not much of a reader myself,” he said, “but I’ve got a library back home I don’t r-really use. I can go through it and send you recommendations.”

The idea that Brandon would want to be in contact with him after this vacation was astounding. Phillip had to fight to keep how pleased he was from showing in his face. “I’d like that, thanks,” he said, and then, because he couldn’t help himself, “If you’re not a reader, why’d you—” He made a gesture. Brandon shrugged.

“Maybe I just wanted to flatter you so you’d talk to me,” he said, and grinned as Phillip’s cheeks heated up, so that he had to press his smiling face momentarily into his hands. 

“Does it always work like that, you being so smooth?” Phillip asked. Brandon did not answer right away; belatedly Phillip remembered, of course, he’s been married, and the man died—he could have hit himself for being so insensitive. But when he looked up at Brandon’s face it was not so much upset as far away. And after a moment he shook it off and said:

“Mostly,” and then, “Look, if your aunt is bedridden—I’d like to re-extend my invitation from yesterday.”

“What invitation?”

“I had wanted to invite you to the beach with me.”

_Perhaps after breakfast—_ “Oh, right,” said Phillip, trying his best to sound nonchalant, and not like his heart was threatening to beat out of his chest. “My aunt interrupted you.”

Brandon nodded.

“I’d like to—” Phillip began, but Brandon held a finger up:

“Let me ask properly.” His voice was light and teasing; like his smile, it took years off. “Do you want to walk to the beach with me and sit?”

“Well, when you put it that way it sounds kind of—” Phillip made a face. Brandon kicked at his ankle with the edge of his shoe; they were both laughing. It seemed as though with every time it got a little easier for Brandon to laugh. Phillip picked up his coffee from where he’d set it on the ground. Together they walked to the trash can, and then around the hotel towards the ocean.

~

It became their custom to go to the beach—in the early morning Phillip would wake and knock at his aunt’s door to see how she was feeling, and then head down feeling like a teenager again to the lobby where Brandon was waiting at his table with a pot of coffee and sometimes plates of toast with marmalade or bacon or sweet-smelling fresh fruit. There was always a moment when Phillip saw Brandon before Brandon saw him, and unguarded his face was shadowed, unhappy—sometimes he was looking at his left hand, where the ring would’ve been not a year previous. Sometimes he had a newspaper spread out in front of him but was not exactly reading it so much as staring through the pages—then his gaze would trip up like drawn by magnetism of some kind and he’d catch sight of Phillip and he’d smile, or his eyes would relax, and he’d set the paper down and stand, kicking the chair adjacent to his out with his foot. It made something spark in Phillip’s chest every time, a pleasant warm thrill like a light jolt of electricity. That Brandon wanted to spend time with him was… Phillip was flattered, because Brandon had this certain intensity about him that meant when his attention was focused on one particular person it was focused on them entire, but also—That he was allegedly still recovering from whatever tragedy had befallen him last spring, yet he wanted Phillip around anyway…

They ate together in the lobby, or sometimes Phillip ate and Brandon drank coffee, and smoked—he carried his cigarettes in a very pretty gold case which he kept tucked into his jacket—and then they together walked out the front doors and into the bright Florida sunshine. It was never difficult to find a stretch of beach to claim for themselves. They lay upon the pale sand with thick towels Brandon brought down from his room and an umbrella he’d rented from the hotel. Brandon wore his Ray-Bans and Phillip wore the cheap greenish sunglasses he’d picked up somewhere in Europe with the left hinge a little crooked against his ear. Usually they did not speak—Brandon would sometimes ask Phillip if he was comfortable, or how he was liking _Brideshead,_ which apparently he’d read years prior and had not thought much of, but was trying to reconsider in light of Phillip enjoying it. Sometimes they went into the water if it was especially uncrowded—Brandon was resplendent in the sunlight with his shoulders bare and freckled, the back of his neck a little sunburnt.

At noon or thereabouts they’d pick up their things and go back in to change—or rather, Brandon would change in his room, Phillip had tried on the first day to go quietly through his own but his aunt had demanded to know what he was doing, so he now kept a change of clothes at the beach, and dressed in the blue-and-white striped tents lining the shore. Then they’d go for lunch somewhere—the casino, or the diner down the road, or a café outside of Miami proper, which meant a longer drive in Brandon’s car, which shone like blood gliding down the hot streets. Brandon paid for both their meals—the first day, Phillip had set up a sort of quiet protest of this:

“I’ll pay you back…” he’d started, watching Brandon’s check disappear on the waiter’s tray, and Brandon had shaken his head once, decisively.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said. And then, watching Phillip’s face: “I mean it. Don’t ever worry about that kind of stuff with me, okay?” That adamant intensity—what else could Phillip do but nod? With his skin still flushed from the sunlight, both of them smelling of seawater. Brandon’s answering smile was enough to quiet his mind, anyway, and after that he didn’t question it again.

In the afternoons they went into the city where they looked at museums, or went to plays Brandon had already bought tickets for. They were mostly local performances with no connection Phillip could see either in subject or genre—one was an adaptation of a science-fiction serial from the early 1910s the protagonist of which was a robot woman whose primary method of transportation was a hot air balloon which was powered, as far as Phillip could tell, by a mixture of cooking oil and heated bathwater. One was a campy musical with rather jaunty piano music about life on the Oregon Trail; it was either in imitation of or otherwise simply mocking _Little House on the Prairie_. One was an eclectic noir-ish piece which seemed to Phillip undoubtedly inspired by Hitchcock—a series of murders in which the victims’ names were scattered in flower petals at the scenes of the crimes. The audience was led to believe for the majority of the play that it was the florist, but of course in the end it was revealed to be his housemaid, whom he had spurned in love five years prior. It grew a bit much towards the end, with the housemaid sobbing over her heartbreak amid a slew of dead bodies, while the florist tried desperately to calm her, but it was all right—at any rate it made Brandon and Phillip laugh, even though Phillip didn’t think they were supposed to, and during the second act Brandon’s thigh pressed against Phillip’s in a way that was too purposeful to be an accident.

One morning when Phillip had been in Miami a week or so it rained—the water lashed against the window in torrential violence, the rain in rivulets like scarring the glass, and the ocean appeared gray and uninviting beneath the overhung clouds. Phillip’s aunt did not seem much upset by the storm—her cold was still lingering, although it certainly didn’t seem to have affected her vocal cords. Phillip was a little worried that without the excuse of going out he would be forced to stay and play bridge with her friends but she didn’t seem to care much and so he slipped out and down to the lobby where as always he found Brandon waiting for him with that private smile and the faraway look in his eyes.

“It’s raining,” said Brandon, when Phillip sat at their usual table and poured a liberal amount of coffee into his cup.

“Yeah,” said Phillip. With the sky darkened the lobby seemed grayer than usual and the hollows beneath Brandon’s eyes were very pronounced in an artful way, like bruised shadows, and there were reddish indents at the corners of them as though he had not slept.

“How’s your aunt?”

“Better, I think. Anyway she’s not keeping me up all night with her coughing, so that’s something.”

Brandon danced his fingers restlessly across the table top. In his face there was a kind of searching… Phillip drank his coffee and waited. And after a moment Brandon produced his cigarettes and lit one and offered another to Phillip. Together they sat for a while unspeaking with smoke trailing about their heads. Brandon held his in an odd way, in the crook of his thumb and forefinger where the skin was in fact a little sallow from nicotine. He exhaled with his brow tightly furrowed; abruptly he said:

“I’m afraid I’ve been keeping you from doing anything you’d like to this week.”

Phillip felt his eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “What—”

“I know you don’t really w-want to be stuck up there with your aunt, but I’m not much better company.”

“Brandon, what are you talking about—”

“I tend to force people into situations,” Brandon said, kind of rushed, with the cigarette dangling from his fingers. “All week I’ve been—” He made a vague gesture outwards. “To the theater, the café, everywhere we’ve gone has been m-my decision, and never, I never asked you o-once if you even wanted to spend time with me—”

“Of course I do, what do you mean—” This was shocking, this exposure of vulnerability like film left in the sun too long. Phillip wanted to take his hand except he didn’t think Brandon would appreciate that—in any case Brandon wouldn’t hold still long enough. His jaw was tense in a way it hadn’t been in several days.

“I’m a very intense person,” Brandon said, as though this explained anything.

“I’ve noticed,” Phillip said, a bit dry, trying to alleviate the mood somewhat. Brandon shot him a look. Phillip held up his hands: “Sorry, sorry—”

“I just d-don’t want you to think I’m keeping you here,” Brandon said. The words sounded as though he was forcing them out. “Especially if your aunt is recovering. You can go spend time to yourself if you like.” As he spoke he gestured with the hand holding the cigarette. Phillip was tracking the movement because he couldn’t really help it—anything was easier than looking into Brandon’s eyes, which were tortured and miserable.

“Brandon—”

“What…”

“Your ash is in your coffee,” Phillip said, and Brandon glanced down.

“Shit,” he mumbled, and then scoffed—it could’ve been a laugh if his teeth weren’t so tightly clenched. For a moment they were quiet while Brandon extinguished his cigarette and lit another, staring off into the middle distance. Then Phillip said:

“I like spending time with you.” He cleared his throat. “It’s the most fun I’ve had in months.” Years, he didn’t say. But it made Brandon look at him all the same.

“Yeah?”

Phillip nodded. He finished off his own coffee and stacked the mug on top of Brandon’s. Outside the wind was lashing the rain against the windows in silvery crystalline patterns.

“Do you want me to go?” Phillip asked.

“No,” Brandon said, immediately. “I just—”

“I like you,” Phillip interrupted gently. “I’ve enjoyed our week together.”

Brandon was letting this cigarette smolder too, caught between his ragged fingernails. “Okay,” he said. His tone was disbelieving. But Phillip thought it would be better to let it go. Whatever strangeness had prompted this sudden attack of—whatever, of openness and almost fear—Phillip wanted to get Brandon past it. Already he was looking somewhat uncomfortable the way he had during their first conversation when he’d stuttered and so Phillip said:

“If you like, since it’s raining, I can suggest something to do…”

“Okay,” Brandon said again. He sounded relieved. “Yeah. Whatever you want.”

This was expansive and also a bit dangerous, since one of the things Phillip vaguely wanted to do was not fit to do in the lobby of a hotel. But he pushed that thought back; he cast his gaze around. When his eyes lit on the piano he could hardly believe he hadn’t noticed it in the week he’d been here. Pushing back his chair he asked, “Do you like—that is, how, what’s your opinion on Chopin?” and when Brandon made a neutral sound Phillip stood, nearly pulling Brandon to his feet as well. His fingers stayed a second too long on Brandon’s wrist. But he didn’t check to see if Brandon had noticed, turning quickly and walking to the piano which was set back in an alcove behind several tall plants on the far side of the lobby. Brandon followed him, sat on the sofa beside it.

“You’re gonna impress me?” he asked—Phillip was relieved to hear something of the old tone returning, faintly arrogant and amused.

“If your taste in music is anything like your taste in theater I don’t think I’ll have to work very hard at that,” Phillip said, and grinned when Brandon did. He didn’t let himself look at Brandon once he’d sat—he didn’t want distractions. When he set his fingers to the keys the music came back like breathing. He was unaware of anything for a long time—the rain, the other patrons, the low rush of cars passing by beneath the storm. Afterwards he sat for a while trembling at the piano, listening to applause—he hadn’t played in six months. He thought he might be crying, but he wasn’t sure. And then he felt fingers on his shoulder, the softest touch in the world, and there was Brandon’s voice above him murmuring:

“Hey, dreamer…” When Phillip looked up Brandon was standing there smiling. “You all right?” he asked, and Phillip nodded.

“Storm’s letting up,” Brandon said, watching carefully at Phillip’s face—he didn’t know what for. He knew only that he wanted Brandon’s hand to stay exactly where it was forever, a bright five-point star of heat through his dress shirt. But inevitably Brandon moved, and then Phillip did too, and together they walked through the lobby and into the shimmering mid-morning heat, mist falling around their eyes as they headed to Brandon’s car.

~

“Come in here for a moment, would you, Phillip?”

The question caught him off guard—he was used to slipping into his room after dinner, calling a quick, “Hello, aunt, how are you,” through the door, then showering, his mind on the day, and falling into bed at last with his book and the radio and the lazy stirring feeling in his chest from having spent another nearly nine hours in Brandon’s intoxicating company. His aunt was under the impression that Phillip went to the beach alone, or that he’d signed up for some temporary classes while he waited for her to get well—tennis, perhaps, or golf, knocking balls on the lush green with a hat skewered down over his eyes and the metal of the club glinting in the sun. It wasn’t so much that he thought she’d disapprove of him spending time with another man—but he didn’t need to hear her opinions on which man it happened to be. _And that husband of his not even gone a full year,_ he could hear her saying. _What on earth are you thinking, didn’t your parents teach you better? Haven’t I been teaching you better?_ As if she herself didn’t live solely off the worst parts of other people’s lives… He took a breath; he pushed the door open. His aunt was as usual sitting up in bed, a half-finished game of Solitaire spread out before her. Someone had sent her flowers; they were wilting in a vase beside her bed. The room smelled of camphor and soup. Phillip leaned against the wall, trying to look casual.

“You’re keeping yourself busy, I suppose,” she said, looking him up and down, picking out flaws with her eyes. “I see you’re catching the sun at last, I suppose they’ve got you out all afternoon on the links.”

“Yeah,” said Phillip. Not half an hour previous he’d been sitting at an outdoor café with Brandon’s knees pressed tightly against his beneath the table because there was barely room for both of them. There had been a live band playing Glenn Miller and Brandon had told him a little about Giambellino, where he’d spent a good bit of his time in Italy.

“Well,” she said, sounding bored, “enjoy it while it lasts.” And then, before he could ask what she meant by that rather cryptic statement, she added, “Do you know if that Brandon Shaw is still at the hotel?”

He cleared his throat. If he explained himself after she was done lecturing him on wasting Brandon’s time it was likely she’d invite him up for dinner, her question had that specific nosy flavor, and he couldn’t imagine how disastrous that would end up becoming. “I’m, uh—I’m not really sure.”

She looked at him with narrowed suspicious eyes. “You don’t pay attention to what’s going on around you, do you,” she said. “That’s always been a fault of yours; it goes hand in hand with that reading.”

“Maybe I’ve seen him on the beach a few times,” Phillip hedged.

“Hmm,” she said. “Well. I still say it was very strange, the way he treated me that day we met him.” She sighed. “However I suppose it is somewhat understandable, considering the circumstances… He adored him, you know. They were together for some years, I believe, prior to the marriage, and when he died it came as a shock to everyone—” here she lowered her voice—“because he’d been a shrimper, and he died on the water.”

“Oh, huh,” said Phillip, in what he hoped was a neutral voice.

“Of course that wasn’t his _only_ job,” she added, a bit disdainfully. “He was supposedly a well-known publisher in New Orleans—they gave a lot of lavish parties, they had a lot of very wealthy friends. Very respected in their society… I wish I had had the foresight to meet him when I saw Brandon’s mother, but alas.” She reached for her bottle of face cream; her cards were upset, and she hissed displeasure. “Come pick these up off the floor for me, would you…”

As Phillip crouched he allowed his mind to flit, briefly, dangerously, into as yet uncharted territory—he hadn’t wanted to ask Brandon anything about his husband, because the idea of having a deceased spouse was of course distantly horrifying, the sort of thing that happened to people in tabloids. Phillip imagined, in a rather morbidly romanticized way, that it must feel not unlike the numb press of the tongue against the space of a missing tooth—and he certainly didn’t want anything of his vague, rather helpless interest in the situation to come across in conversation. If nothing else he didn’t want to sound like his aunt, who would’ve likely asked Brandon herself if they’d sat at breakfast that first day for another ten minutes. But this picture his aunt was painting of the man—however vague, and whatever details she’d left out… A rich, well-dressed publisher, cocktail parties on the weekends, arm through Brandon’s, both of them laughing… Counting his earnings during shrimp season and Brandon over his shoulder, watching his pencil scrape the checkbook, blowing out the dim candle beside him on the desk, murmuring, “Come to bed…” in that hoarse strange accent…

Phillip shook his head, straightening, and handed his aunt the cards. He sat on the edge of her mattress with her for a while and they played a relatively quiet game of bridge, Gershwin on the radio, light chatter traveling down the hall. And he didn’t let himself think about the rich man who had once been Brandon’s husband, nor of the faraway expression Brandon wore every morning, without fail, until he noticed Phillip standing at the elevators.

~

In the morning as usual Phillip met Brandon in the lobby. He was biting his thumbnail in an abstract way which he did sometimes habitually; he smiled at Phillip as he always did, that stunning thing. The edge of an incisor got caught on his lower lip as he put his hand back in his lap.

“What’s the plan for today?” Phillip asked, sitting across from him, their feet kicking together momentarily under the table as he got settled, in a way that could easily be passed off as accidental.

“I had these tickets,” Brandon said, in a tone Phillip was beginning to recognize as disgusted-with-society. “To this opera thing. But the box office called up my room before I came downstairs and said, ‘Oh, Mr. Shaw, we’re so sorry—’” mocking, high falsetto, so that Phillip would laugh—“‘I’m afraid we’ve lost your tickets due to a system-wide error,’ and would I like to come in and collect my refund instead, and buy the same seats for next week’s performance at half-off.”

“Oh,” said Phillip, “are you going to be here next week?”

Something flitted across Brandon’s face, there and gone again too fast for Phillip to catch. “No,” he said, “I’m leaving before the weekend.”

It was difficult to keep his expression neutral. “You’re going—where?”

“Home,” said Brandon. He was watching Phillip. The gaze like sticking a fork in an electric socket. “God knows I’ve been away long enough.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. But Phillip couldn’t have explained why.

“You miss New Orleans?” Phillip asked.

Brandon nodded. Then, clearing his throat: “But I’m not leaving yet—like I said those incompetent shits at the opera house lost my tickets, so we can’t go entertain ourselves for an afternoon like that, but I thought—do you want to just go pick up my refunds and then go to a museum?”

He could have asked Phillip if he wanted to go sit on the wharf and watch seagulls eating fish heads. It came on suddenly like that, the knowledge that Phillip wanted to do everything with Brandon, even the most disgusting things, even the most mundane… He didn’t know if it was because Brandon had said he was leaving or because his aunt had implied as much of the same on their end the night previous or if it was just the accumulation of the past week catching up to him but he wanted—whatever Brandon wanted. God help him he was so, so screwed… “I would love to go watch you make pretentious comments at paintings for an hour,” he said, and was rewarded by that laugh—dazzling, spectacular. They finished their coffee and cigarettes and Phillip took three bites of toast and then they headed out to Brandon’s car. It glistened like a lava spill in the parking lot.

Inserting his key into the driver’s side door Brandon said, “Hey, check in my trunk, would you, I think I have this, this tourist’s guide to Miami, we can look and see whatever, you know, what places we haven’t been yet.” We. Inclusive. Phillip barely tamped down his shiver as he caught the keys Brandon tossed him, unlocking the trunk and popping it open. There was a spare tire, a bottle of Windex, half-empty, a flat Coke encased in green glass, some tarp, and the tourist book—when Phillip leaned in to grab it he caught sight of another book hidden behind the spare tire. Bound in maroon leather, with the title embossed in gold print on the side: _Thus Spoke Zarathustra,_ by Friedrich Nietzsche. And, on the inside cover: _From the Library of Rupert E. Cadell._

Taking both the Nietzsche and the tourist’s guide Phillip slammed the lid of the trunk and walked around to where Brandon was leaning against his car with a cigarette between his lips and that same strained look as always about his eyes. He looked over at Phillip and smiled—then his eyes fell to the books and his mouth tightened a little at the corners.

“I’d forgotten—” he began, but stopped himself, taking up _101 Things To Do In Miami_ instead, flipping to the index. It was hot, perhaps the hottest it had been since Phillip had arrived. He could feel the sun on his neck, aching, oppressive.

“Who’s Rupert Cadell?” Phillip asked, still holding _Zarathustra._ Watching carefully at Brandon’s face.

For a moment Brandon did not answer. He was looking through the M section of his guide book, and Phillip was opening his mouth to say, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to touch your things without asking, but then Brandon said, “My husband.”

Unbidden a flush came to Phillip’s cheeks. “Oh,” he said, with a feeling like dry ice had just been poured into his chest. “I’ll, uh—I mean I can put it back if you—”

“No, no,” said Brandon, shaking or seeming to shake himself out of wherever he’d gone, looking up from the guide book. “It’s okay.” Something that was trying very hard to be a smile passed through his eyes. “Let’s g-go to the opera house, all right?”

“All right,” said Phillip, and walked around the car to get in. His mind on his aunt’s words: _he adored him…_ He thumbed through _Zarathustra_ while Brandon got settled in the driver’s seat. It was surprisingly florid, but it was still philosophy, which Phillip had never had much of a mind for. _Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman…_ After a while he set it on the floor between his feet and turned to watch the palm trees and the burning blue sky out the window.

They were nearly at the opera house before Brandon spoke again: “He was a philosophy professor at Tulane. And in his spare time he published a lot of articles in the _Times-Picayune._ He’d retired from Tulane w-when it… h-happened; he’d started working at a p-publishing house in Gretna.”

“Where’s Gretna?” Phillip asked, in what he hoped was a neutral tone. Brandon’s voice was shaking a little bit.

“Just across the river from New Orleans.” He pulled into the parking lot. There was a space available at the very front and he cut the ignition and sat for a moment staring at the dashboard.

“I didn’t mean to look through your stuff,” Phillip said, when the silence had stretched on, and the oppressive heat was seeping through the windshield.

Brandon shook his head. “It’s f-fine. Really.”

“Bringing up memories like that—”

“It’s hardly something I can stop thinking about anyway,” Brandon said. His voice like cut glass. Taut as piano wire. Phillip reached over to touch his arm—he felt awful. Brandon’s muscles were tense beneath his hand, but he didn’t pull away. He didn’t pull away. They sat like that for a while, until Brandon began to relax, by degrees. When at last he looked over at Phillip his expression was nearly normal.

“Shall we go in and get r-retribution for our lost afternoon?” he asked. He sounded apologetic. Belatedly Phillip realized he was still holding Brandon’s arm, his fingers sunk into the fine fabrics, feeling the heat of his skin. Heart quickening beneath his ribs he pulled away; he said:

“Hardly lost if we get to walk around instead of sitting cramped in the dark for two hours.” He wasn’t sure how Brandon would take it, but the corner of his mouth twitched. There was something about his face that seemed to say _thank you_ as well as _I’m sorry._ For a moment they sat watching each other, Phillip fighting very hard to keep the blush off his cheeks—then Brandon opened his door, and together they walked across the parking lot into the cool dark interior of the main offices to collect the check.

~

After the museum, Rupert Cadell did not come up again—Phillip wasn’t interested in dredging it up, and Brandon didn’t volunteer any more information. _Zarathustra_ was gone the following morning when Phillip got into Brandon’s car—he supposed Brandon had taken it to his room, but he didn’t ask. They went to their café—Phillip had begun thinking of it as such, which he knew was dangerous, but he couldn’t help it—and afterwards to the last theater performance Brandon had bought a ticket to. When they parted ways for the evening Brandon brushed their knuckles together—he looked for a moment like he wanted to say something, his mouth was slightly open, but he turned instead, and said only:

“See you tomorrow, dreamer.” Which sent a thrill up Phillip’s spine despite his knowing it couldn’t mean anything—Brandon was leaving for New Orleans soon, and Phillip was… well, he didn’t know, but certainly he wouldn’t see Brandon again. They’d exchange addresses—a city street and a post office number—and there’d be some books in the mail, maybe a letter or two, in that slanted jagged handwriting Phillip had seen on his checks, and then—

“Yeah,” Phillip said, because if he let himself keep going down that road something would detonate within his chest. “See you tomorrow.”

But when he got to his room he found his aunt on the floor with her hands in her suitcases methodically folding clothes. Her cards were put away and her bathroom was a wreck—Phillip closed his door, put his hands in his pockets so she wouldn’t see them shaking. Leaning against the doorframe adjoining their rooms he said:

“Are we going somewhere, aunt?” She paused in her movements to glare at him:

“Where have you been all day?” and then, before he could answer: “Yes, what does it look like? My fever’s gone and I’m sick of Miami. I called the train station and arranged for tickets for the both of us tomorrow at noon to New York.”

It was an effort to keep his face from showing anything. It felt not unlike when Brandon had said he was leaving, except worse, because this was happening to Phillip, out of his control… He said, “We’re leaving tomorrow?” and perhaps something of his feelings came through in his voice because his aunt snapped:

“ _Yes,_ Phillip, we’re leaving tomorrow. As I said I’m feeling well now, and we are still traveling, you know.”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Well, it’s just… you haven’t seen much of Miami…”

With a wave of her hand she dismissed the entire city. “It’s going to be warmer here soon,” she said, “and I’d rather be up north during the summer months.” Her eyes skittered to his room, _Brideshead_ open with its bent spine on his bed. “You should be happy to be going to New York, I’m sure plenty of your book writers have kept shop there in the past.”

“Yes,” said Phillip, in the same tight voice he could remember using for years with his father, when he wanted to avoid arguing. “I’m sure they have.”

“And don’t be snippy with me,” she said, turning back to her suitcase, fitting her creams into a bag. “You can find just as many people willing to play golf with you in that city as here.” She glanced at her watch. “Hurry and start packing, I want us to be up early tomorrow so we can have time to breakfast in the lobby before we leave for the station.”

“All right,” said Phillip, and shut the door before she could think of anything else to order him to do. His head swimming he sank onto his mattress, staring out at the last vestiges of sunset on the horizon. There was nothing left—Brandon would only be staying here for another two days himself. So this was what it boiled down to in the end—a week of tremulous emotions, a single instance at a piano, knees pressed together in a café… dark afternoons together in the theater, hushed conversations about paintings in museums… By the weekend Phillip would be in some stuffy hotel in Manhattan watching his aunt purchase her Broadway tickets via telephone and having to call down to the desk clerk for a map of the subway. And Brandon would be in New Orleans, a thousand miles away. It didn’t seem fair. It was the sort of thing that should’ve happened to a character in a book. The heroine of a Brontë novel, perhaps, with her relationship to whatever dark and brooding man on the brink of failure. Except Jane had gotten Mr. Rochester in the end, after all. And Phillip didn’t know if Brandon even thought of him that way.

He packed without letting himself think about much of anything. In the shower his breath caught in his chest in tangles like a wave breaking over jagged rocks and he pressed his face into the washcloth.

~

They ate breakfast early enough that Brandon hadn’t even come down yet. Phillip watched in mounting dread as his aunt put away her waffles with alarming speed before hustling to the desk and ordering a taxi to take them to the station. For some reason all he could think of was a line from a poem he’d read, years ago: _I met a traveler from an antique land…_ With his heart in his throat he followed his aunt to the room where they finished packing the last of their things and then headed downstairs. He was dizzy with how much he did not want this, any of it. He watched for a moment at the clock over the front doors—then suddenly turning to his aunt he said:

“I want to check if I’ve left anything in the room.”

“We were just up there,” she said, without looking at him.

“Yes, but—”

“Ah, I see. You want to make sure you haven’t forgotten any of your books.” The word pronounced with cold disdain. “Well, I suppose you must have them. After all I know you won’t be much for conversation on the ride up.” Her laughter, sharp, still laced with sickness, followed him into the stairwell. Once there he took a breath. He knew where Brandon’s room was and so it was not anything to climb the stairs, taking them two at a time, to the third floor, where he walked down the hall with his legs shaking so fast was he going and knocked on the door hard enough to hurt his wrist.

“Just a minute,” Brandon called from within. Phillip stood feeling jittery on the threshold—when Brandon opened the door he looked startled, but only for a moment. Then he smiled—it was the same smile as ever. Something in Phillip’s chest collapsed as if from a great height.

“Hey,” said Brandon. He was in his pajamas still, and a robe, with his hair a little ruffled from sleep. He smelled of shaving cream; he looked sleepy and pleasantly confused at having Phillip at his threshold. “What’s—”

“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” Phillip said, “only I had to come see you. I had to say goodbye.”

Brandon’s brow furrowed. “What—”

“We’re leaving Miami at noon on the train, my aunt and I,” he said. His voice was shaking as bad as his legs. “I didn’t want—we’re already done eating and packing and I didn’t want you to come down to the lobby and wait for me and think, and assume that I didn’t want to see you, because I just—”

“Hey.” Brandon’s voice was gentle, but it cut through Phillip like wire all the same, because he was never going to hear it again after today. “Come in, all right?” He opened his door a little wider, ushered Phillip in with his arm. It was a large room, with a series of steps ascending to the bed, and the bathroom beyond. There was a sofa beside a table meant for cards or else meals and it was to this that Brandon led Phillip, his arm pressed firmly to Phillip’s shoulders.

“Where is she taking you?” he asked, when they’d sat together. His thumb was rubbing in distracting circles around Phillip’s arm and thus it was several moments before he could gather his thoughts enough to say:

“New York. She says now that she feels well enough she’s bored of Florida and wants to move on.”

Brandon snorted. “More likely Miami didn’t fit her expectations,” he said, “so she faked sick for a week and then bought a ticket out.”

Phillip made his mouth twitch into a smile, because he knew it was what Brandon wanted. Brandon drew him in a little closer—or perhaps it was only Phillip’s imagination, because a second later he was leaning over to take up the phone.

“Sorry, are you going right now?” he asked, and when Phillip shook his head he said into the receiver: “I want breakfast sent up to my room. Quiche with chicken and sun-dried tomato. And coffee. Two mugs. Make it fast.” Then from his case he withdrew two cigarettes. When he lit Phillip’s his hand grazed Phillip’s jaw; it felt like sunbursts upon his skin. They sat for a while in silence smoking with their arms pressed tightly between them and the sun gradually spilling into the room. 

“You’ve never told me—why do you go everywhere with your aunt?” Brandon asked, when his cigarette was nearing its end.

Phillip bit his mouth. It wasn’t something he’d ever spoken of, guarded somewhere between his third and fourth ribs. And Brandon after a moment must have sensed his hesitance because he glanced over. “You don’t have to—”

“No, I just—” Phillip sighed. He extinguished his own cigarette in the ashtray which was set on the table in front of them. It was a very pretty pale pink, inlaid with fools’ gold, the name of the hotel on the side in script. “I grew up on a farm, like my aunt told you the first day we all met. My father and I were always at odds—when my mother died it got worse, we were always either fighting or we were asleep. I started going to the community college in Oklahoma City and he really didn’t like that… Then six months ago not long after I graduated I came home drunk with a friend of mine, a guy, from the college and we, we got up to things in my room, my father caught us— He almost killed my friend, it was—” He cleared his throat. “Anyway after that he said he didn’t want someone like me on his farm, so he called up his aunt and asked her to come take me.”

“You couldn’t have just moved out?”

“With what money?” His voice came out sharper than he’d meant; it made Brandon flinch a little. To smooth it over Phillip added, “I would’ve had to room with someone in the city and I don’t, except for my friend from the college I didn’t really know anyone out there well enough.”

Brandon nodded. His fingers were twitching like he wanted another cigarette but wasn’t letting himself reach for them. “So you just go along with her wherever she wants?”

“Yeah.” Phillip sighed. “It’s not—really ideal, but I don’t, I don’t have anything else.” He laughed once, soft. “I’ll probably be traveling with her now until she dies.”

Momentarily Brandon’s attention was drawn from Phillip by a knock at the door; a waiter came in with his breakfast, the smell of which reminded Phillip that he had only eaten half a piece of toast nearly two hours ago. He watched Brandon pour them both coffee; the waiter pushed the tray back out of the room with the half-empty tureen on it. When they were alone again Brandon said:

“So you’re not—you aren’t obligated to travel with her. She isn’t sick.”

“No—god, no, except for this weird cold she’s just gotten over she’s incredibly healthy for her age.”

“Does she mind if you want to go do things by yourself?”

“I mean, I’ve never asked…” Phillip winced a little, realizing how that sounded, as though he were still a teenager, bound to whatever adult was closest by some string… But Brandon hardly seemed to notice. He was cutting up his quiche. After a moment quietly he said:

“If I wanted to bring you back to New Orleans with me for the weekend do you suppose she’d be very angry?”

Phillip was sure he’d misheard. “I mean,” he began, laughing, “I’m guessing she’d say something about how I only wanted to be there because Faulkner went there…”

“But you think s-she’d let you?” Brandon asked, and there was something in his voice—Phillip stopped laughing, and looked over. Brandon was watching him with that usual intensity; his fork was poised halfway to his mouth.

“Wait,” said Phillip. “You’re—you’re serious?”

Brandon frowned a little. “I mean, yeah—” He paused. “Do you not want to go?”

“No…” It was belatedly occurring to Phillip that all of this was really happening. “It’s, it’s just that—”

“Just what?”

“Well, I’m… I’m poor.”

“So?”

“So I just, I don’t know, I thought maybe—”

“You think I’ve just been spending t-time with you because I feel sorry for you? Because I’m bored? That I’m only h-hanging out with you—”

“What? No—” 

“—as some s-sort of experiment? Just something to do until I can g-go home?” He stabbed his chicken with more violence than necessary. His voice was very tight; he seemed to be barely restraining himself.

Phillip blinked. “Of course not; that’s not what I meant,” he said. In fact he wasn’t sure why he’d said anything. It seemed very foolish in retrospect to have brought it up at all, when he remembered the way Brandon had paid for all his things, how his few questions about the farm had always been very delicate, but he’d listened with undisguised interest to whatever Phillip told him…

“That’s n-not something I’d ever do to you,” Brandon said. His hands were shaking as he pulled another cigarette from his case. “Do you really think I give a shit about any of that?”

“No, Brandon,” Phillip murmured. He was thinking of their conversation the week previous; how Brandon had said _I tend to force people into situations_ with such loathing in his voice. He wished he’d just kept his mouth shut. His old insecurities boiling up again—

“Of course, if you don’t want to come—”

“No.” He reached over, pressed his hand to Brandon’s arm. “I’d love to go with you,” he said, when Brandon looked over at him. “I’ve never seen New Orleans.” He watched the unhappy lines about Brandon’s face slowly fall back. The tension in his muscles relaxed. He handed Phillip a cigarette too, and he was nearly smiling.

“You’re going to love it,” he said. He seemed pleased that Phillip had said yes. They finished their coffee; then reluctantly Phillip stood. For a moment he was caught between the sofa and the table and nearly pressed into Brandon; his eyes stuck on Phillip’s like a storm in glass. He reached out to brush a crumb off Phillip’s shirt, the pad of his thumb grazing a sliver of bare skin. Softly he said:

“I suppose you have to go tell your aunt.”

“Uh-huh,” said Phillip, without really moving. His knee was on Brandon’s knee; Brandon hadn’t moved his hand from his chest. He was sure he could feel his heart where it was thudding in jagged erratic pulse at his ribs. “And I need, uh—I need my suitcase.”

“Right,” said Brandon. His eyes were somewhere near Phillip’s mouth. It would be the easiest thing in the world just to lean down—

Instead Phillip made himself step away. As Brandon’s hand fell back he reached up with his own and squeezed once. It was another of those fleeting jolts of electricity. Brandon’s eyes were burning. Whatever doubts Phillip might have had—he knew he was doing the right thing. It was very hard to pull away and leave the room, even if only for a few minutes.

Downstairs his aunt waited in the lobby reapplying her lipstick with a little compact mirror. She looked up sharply when Phillip walked in. “Where have you been?” she demanded. And then, before he could answer: “Oh, never mind that for now. I want you to go ask the porter for luggage tags—”

“Actually, I’m not going with you,” said Phillip.

“Oh, really?” She laughed, a delicate scoffing sound. Clearly she thought he was being smart, so it was all the more satisfying to say:

“Yeah, Brandon Shaw invited me to come with him to New Orleans. He wants to show me the city,” and to watch her face, her mouth fall open, her eyebrows climb up her forehead. It was perhaps the first time in six months he’d ever seen her at a complete loss for words.

“You—” She grappled for a moment with her thoughts. “All this week—and you told me you were golfing.” Her eyes did their usual judgmental cast over his body. “Well. I suppose all those novels you’ve been reading have given you some ideas of how to pick it up faster.”

“It’s not like that,” said Phillip, quietly.

“Oh, I’m sure,” she said. She was sneering. He supposed he shouldn’t have been so surprised she felt she had to have the last word even in this. “All those months of missing that husband of his, I’m sure the long, lonely drive back to Louisiana has nothing to do with this choice he’s made—”

Phillip’s cheeks were burning. “I just came down to tell you I’m leaving,” he said, “and I need to get my suitcase.”

“Are you staying with him there?”

“Just for the weekend.”

“Hmm,” she said, disbelieving. “All right. I suppose when it’s all over you can wire me to send you another ticket and just come meet me in Manhattan.” She reached out, unexpectedly, and straightened the sleeve of his jacket. “Only don’t expect me to sit around consoling you over a broken heart. It’s hardly my fault you can’t seem to learn from your mistakes.”

“I won’t,” said Phillip, cold, and took up his suitcase. “Goodbye for now, aunt.” And before she could spit out another rejoinder he’d gone back to the elevators, squeezing in alongside a businessman and a gray-haired woman carrying a Pomeranian. The last thing he saw of his aunt was her suspicious sneering eyes watching him. When the doors closed he exhaled once, shakily. Then he straightened his shoulders; made himself stop thinking about her. For the first time in a long time he felt like there was a little clean space in his chest, with room for hope for better things, like coffee with Brandon in the mornings and a whole new city to explore without the critical hovering presence of his aunt. And it wasn’t until much later, when he was standing with Brandon at the front desk listening to him talk his way out of staying the rest of his visit despite it being past checkout time, that he remembered Rupert Cadell, and how Brandon’s face had gone shadowed when he’d seen the book in Phillip’s hands.

~

It was a twelve-hour drive from Miami to New Orleans, and they took it in shifts. When it was Brandon’s turn he drove with the driver’s side window rolled, his free arm sticking out the side, the wind rushing past in harsh hollow discord. Phillip read to him from the map intermittently until they got to I-10 at which point Brandon said it was a straight shot. They stopped for lunch at a roadside diner outside Tallahassee; thin burgers with pale pickles, a handful of fries in a paper bag. Then Phillip drove and Brandon talked to him a little about New Orleans, about what they were going to see:

“My friend Janet’s little sister is having an art show. I wasn’t supposed to show until the last few days but since we left Miami early we’ll get there for the opening. I thought you might be interested. There’ll be other work in the gallery as well if Julie’s is just awful,” and he laughed, and Phillip laughed too, watching him relaxed and casual in the passenger seat. It seemed remarkable to him that not even a full day ago he’d been so terrified he’d lose this forever. And now here they were driving west through deep endless forests, watching together the sun’s descent towards the horizon.

It was nearing midnight when they crossed the state line into Louisiana. Phillip stared, eyes damp with sleep, at the encroaching darkness that lay beyond his window. In the driver’s seat Brandon was quiet, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. When he saw Phillip was awake he smiled a little.

“Here we are,” he said. Though ‘here’ turned out to be a relative term, because it was still another long while until they reached the city proper—they crossed what Brandon said was the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway first and Phillip nearly fell asleep again waiting for it to end. The endless miles of the lake stretching out across on either side glowing like thrown pearls in the moonlight. At the far side Phillip could just make out in the dim pale glow some structure, set a ways back from the lake, raised up off the marshlands.

“Is that a house?” he asked Brandon, as they drove past.

“Yeah,” said Brandon, in an odd voice.

Phillip settled himself back against the seat. “Who would want to live all the way out here?” he asked, sleepy, half-teasing. Brandon was so quiet for so long Phillip thought perhaps he hadn’t heard him or else that he’d dreamed he’d asked it; the tires were singing on the asphalt and there were lit buildings in the near distance when he said:

“That’s, well, it was Rupert’s house.”

Oh, Christ. “Brandon, I—”

“Don’t apologize,” said Brandon. His hand was out the window again, feeling the burning humid air blowing in. “He used it f-for shrimping, mostly. I don’t really go out there anymore.” Please don’t ask anything else, his tone said. Phillip bit his lip; he sat up straighter in his seat, knuckling at his eyes.

“Tell me something I don’t know about you yet,” said Phillip, changing the subject so that Brandon’s shoulders would relax. Which they did, although slowly.

“I have a dog,” Brandon said, after some hesitation. “His name’s Rooster. He lives in Waveland with my mother; he was supposed to live in the city, but c-circumstances—” He paused. When he spoke again he seemed to be very carefully picking his words. “Rupert was allergic, and we’d already b-been married for a while anyway, so I thought it would be easier on myself and the dog to let him stay in the country. After e-everything, I was going to let him come to New Orleans, but he’s used to my mother, and he has so much more space out there… she brings him usually when she drives into the city for her business.”

“You must miss him.”

“It’s easier since he never lived with me to b-begin with,” said Brandon. There was some strange resentment buried in his tone that Phillip thought it would be better to ignore. “He’s happier on the beach, and he likes the car rides.”

“I’d like to see him someday,” Phillip said, before he could consider what a monumentally stupid thing it was to say—as if he’d ever have the opportunity! But Brandon only glanced at him once, looking a little surprised; then he said:

“Sure. Someday.” It wasn’t precisely the conversation Phillip had imagined himself having, wherein he could say bright, intelligent things despite his exhaustion. But Brandon’s jaw wasn’t tight anymore, so he figured it was okay.

He fell asleep again as they were just coming into the city. He was half-aware after a time of Brandon rolling the window up. There were sounds outside, voices, the rush of cars— When Phillip was next able to focus they were pulling up alongside a tall wooden house, two-storied, balconies on both floors joined by long white pillars. The fence surrounding it was iron-wrought, covered in vines. The median was lined with massive trees, branches overhanging the full width of the street. The electric lights lining the sidewalks looked like gas lamps. Even in the relative dark Phillip could see it was beautiful.

“You awake?” Brandon asked him, softly.

“Uh-huh.”

“Well,” said Brandon, getting out on his side and walking around to open Phillip’s door, “I know it’s not ideal to get here so late—but this is Esplanade, and this is my house.” He took Phillip’s hand and helped him out of the car. It was like being in a Victorian novel with the streets so small and the strange scent in the air like sewage and raw dough. Drowsily Phillip thought Brandon might kiss him, but he only steadied Phillip to lean against the car while he walked to the trunk and removed their suitcases. He flashed him a smile around the bumper. “Welcome to New Orleans.”

~

In the morning Phillip woke with the sunlight coming in and stretching out over the floor of the guest room. Delicate music wound its way up the stairs—horns and piano, the ethereal seductive call of jazz. Phillip closed his eyes again for a moment against its swell—then he got up and pulled on his clothes and went downstairs. Brandon was standing in the kitchen in a loose white shirt and soft pajama pants, fixing eggs with shaved, white cheese and red peppers. The music was flowing out of a record player he had beside a piano in the room adjacent. The whole house was light, stucco walls and high ceilings, cool wooden floors, except the kitchen which was covered in Spanish tile.

“Hey,” said Brandon, without turning from the cast-iron skillet he had on the stove. “Sleep all right?”

“Yeah,” said Phillip, leaning against the arched entrance from the hall. “It’s a lovely house.”

Brandon’s mouth curved. “Thank you.” He pointed to the icebox. “Would you mind getting the salami out for me—it’s on the bottom shelf.”

Phillip got the salami—then Brandon had him dice it into squares and put it in with the eggs. When everything was done cooking they sat together at the kitchen island and ate and Brandon smoked his way through two cigarettes, holding them between his bitten ragged nails. He looked loose, at ease, in a way he hadn’t in Miami.

“So today,” he said, when they were nearly done eating, “I’m having Janet and her husband Kenneth over and we’re all going to eat at Brennan’s, then after we’re going to Julie’s show—does that sound all right?” The way he asked it made it sound as though if Phillip said no, he’d call his friends and cancel their plans, day of. It was a bit overwhelming. But Phillip couldn’t truthfully say it wasn’t also flattering.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it sounds fine.”

“Okay, good,” said Brandon, stacking the plates, hiding his smile. “And then after I thought if we have time I can take you to a bookstore, so you can buy more things to irritate your aunt.” There was something, a little catch in his voice Phillip didn’t understand—himself he’d half-forgotten that he was only here for two days, and that he’d be leaving when the art show was finished—by this time three days from now he’d be on a train going northeast, and Brandon would be here, surrounded by eclectic charming beautiful people who could no doubt make him forget his husband as easily as Phillip thought he had. He twisted the napkin in his lap. There was a piece of dead skin on his thumb which he’d never noticed; he picked at it so he wouldn’t have to look at Brandon when he said:

“All right.” He was proud of himself; he sounded nearly normal. He pushed away from the island, helped Brandon wash the dishes. Their arms brushed at the sink with the jazz floating over their heads and the pretty violet and gold beads that hung on the lock in the window. “What are those for?” Phillip asked, nodding up at them.

“Mardi Gras,” said Brandon. “It’s too bad we missed it this year.” He had that faraway look in his eyes again. “A couple years ago R-Rupert was king at Endymion—like the head of a parade.” He turned off the sink, wiped his hands on the towel. “T-They’d begged him for years to do it and he k-kept refusing—he got t-talked into it that year though.”

It was strange, the way Brandon said things about Rupert, in this tense voice almost like he was angry. Phillip wondered if he blamed himself for his death, or else just that he was upset at reliving memories. After a moment he drew in a breath.

“Will you play me s-something?” he asked. “I bought that piano because Mother wanted to get rid of it from her shop, but I can’t use it myself, and I d-don’t want it to go to waste.”

“Sure,” said Phillip, softly, and together they walked into the room with the record player. Brandon lifted the needle off the vinyl and sat beside the piano.

“I don’t have sheets,” he said, apologetic.

“Sure you do,” said Phillip. “Remember, I told you I slept perfectly well last night.”

“What—oh my god,” said Brandon, laughing. Biting his own smile into his cheek Phillip set his fingers on the keys and began a slightly halting version of Liszt’s Liebestraum. Brandon’s piano was a little out of tune, but he didn’t seem to notice. When Phillip was finished he glanced over and saw Brandon’s eyes were closed, so he flexed his fingers a little and kept going: Rhapsody in Blue, most of it, and Moonlight Serenade—

“Hey, this is my favorite,” Brandon said, smiling.

—and select among Scott Joplin’s works. Then his wrists began to ache and so he stopped, and Brandon went to his room and changed into his day clothes and then showed Phillip around the house: the kitchen and piano room downstairs, and the little hall beyond, with a bathroom and an office. Upstairs was the guest room and Brandon’s room across from it, and a half-bath, and the library, the door of which was shut. It had the strange and musty smell of a room that was undisturbed; the curtains were shut, the air felt quiet. Even when Brandon flicked the light switch on the room for a moment seemed almost to flinch back, as though it was unused to visitors and couldn’t decide if it wanted any.

“These are all books from my old house,” said Brandon, standing near the doorway while Phillip walked in and looked at the shelves. “I haven’t had time to go get new ones.”

“The house on the lake?”

“No, no.” Brandon waved his hand. “We—I mean, Rupert and I had another house on St. Charles—” he gestured to his left—“and I, before I went on my trip I s-sold it. I bought this one not long after the accident.” His arms were folded. “I h-haven’t spent much time here, but I w-want to.” Then, inexplicably, he looked at Phillip. There was a question in his eyes Phillip couldn’t read; all the same his heart shot into his throat. It was with an effort that he managed to drag his gaze back to the books.

“So this is the library you told me about in Miami, then,” Phillip said, in lieu of blushing or asking something completely life-ruining such as: _do you mean with me?_ Brandon frowned a little, like he’d caught Phillip’s deflection, because of course he had, because Phillip was awful at this sort of thing, but thankfully he let it go, and said only:

“Yeah. You can look at any of these—you can take any you want.”

“What, really?”

“Sure.” Brandon shrugged. “I don’t have a use for them.”

Phillip half-smiled. “What about our trip to the bookstore?”

“Oh, this is all mostly non-fiction. The bookstore is specifically for irritating your aunt,” and he grinned. He looked like a completely different person when he was happy. It was a stunning transformation.

Phillip pulled a book off the shelf— _Being and Nothingness._ Philosophy. Rupert must’ve had a huge influence on this library, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t, the words were stuck in his throat. When he flipped it open to the first page of course he saw _From the Library of Rupert E. Cadell_ at the top. It was the same in _Being and Time_ —what’s the difference, Phillip wondered—and in Plato’s _Republic,_ and Kierkegaard’s _Fear and Trembling._ Even in the non-philosophical books, there was Rupert’s mark, bold-faced, capital letters, tight Roman type, before anything else. It was like looking at a time capsule. _These are the last things Rupert held in his hands. These are the last things he owned. These are the last things he and Brandon owned together._ A feeling ran down Phillip’s spine not unlike a dishtowel being rung out. When he looked over at Brandon, Brandon was looking carefully out the window—it was clear he’d been watching Phillip. Heat crawling up the sides of his face Phillip collected a small pile of books more to make Brandon happy than out of any real desire to read them and walked to the door.

“Thanks,” he said, biting his lower lip.

“I hope you enjoy them.” There was that odd tension in Brandon’s voice again. He flicked off the light, shut the door. Phillip put his books on the bed in the guest room feeling relatively awful and the two of them went down to the piano room again.

“I’m not angry with you,” said Brandon abruptly, sitting on the sofa. “It’s just difficult to look at his things.”

“I understand,” said Phillip, although of course he didn’t, really. There was something pressing at the back of his mind which he couldn’t quite catch hold of.

“His body w-washed up at Bay St. Louis,” Brandon said, staring at his hands, his fingers tangled over each other. “I had to d-drive all the way out and identify his, his r-remains.” He dragged a hand, shakily, through his hair. “It was h-hard to tell it had b-been him at all.”

Phillip sat down. “Brandon…”

“So you see why I’ve been traveling,” he said, biting a little at his thumb. “I c-couldn’t be here.”

Phillip nodded. Not knowing what else to say he said, “I think it’s good that you bought this house. Fresh start.”

Brandon glanced over at him. “Right,” he said. “That’s exactly what I thought.” When he dropped his hand between them it was the most natural thing in the world to reach over and take it. Brandon’s skin was warm; he curved their thumbs together. He stroked over Phillip’s skin and Phillip’s mind went kind of blank.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Brandon said. His voice was so soft. Phillip could hear nothing but the wind chimes on the porch.

“Yeah,” Phillip said. “I am too.” His mouth had gone dry. If he turned his face just slightly—

The doorbell rang. Phillip jumped; momentarily an unfamiliar, irritated expression passed over Brandon’s face, then it was gone, and he was detangling their fingers and standing. Speaking fast he said, “Janet might ask too many questions, but she’s harmless. Mostly.” He looked nervous, biting his lower lip again. His hand was twitching at his side and Phillip without thinking reached over to the side table and produced a pack of cigarettes. Brandon smiled a little, taking one: “Reading my mind already?” but he’d turned away before he could see how Phillip blushed. They walked to the front door and opened it into the mid-morning heat.

“Hello, chum,” said Janet, walking in and kissing Brandon on both cheeks. “Sorry we’re late—you have no idea how hard it is to find a sitter during the day. If Ken’s practice wasn’t doing so well I think we’d move out here with you.”

“Well,” said Brandon, “after all, how can you bear to leave the charms of Destrehan?” and they both laughed.

Then Janet turned to Phillip. For a moment the way she studied him reminded him uncomfortably of his aunt—then she smiled, and the illusion was shattered. “You must be Phillip,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m Janet Lawrence—this is my husband, Kenneth,” indicating a thin, blond man who came in after her, looking pleasantly lost.

“Nice to meet you,” said Phillip. They shook; her eyes traveled over him again. Her mouth quirked in an odd way.

“What,” said Brandon suspiciously, apparently noticing her look.

She glanced at him. Her cheeks were a little red. “Nothing, nothing,” she said, perhaps too quickly. Then, looking at Brandon too, in that same evaluating way: “You look much better, duck.”

“I don’t know what you mean—”

“Last time Ken and I saw you,” she said, including Kenneth in the conversation, who looked as though he would rather not talk about—whatever this was. “I mean, god knows you’re still too thin now, but it was like—I don’t know, but you looked really, really awful.”

“Thanks,” said Brandon, dry. The hand which was still holding his cigarette flexed a little. Phillip wondered what their relationship was. He was avoiding looking at her. There was faint tension strung up between them like Christmas lights—after a moment Kenneth cleared his throat, perhaps more forcibly than necessary, and said:

“Weren’t you in Italy for a bit?”

“Yes,” said Brandon, “to pick up a cassone for my mother’s shop,” and that seemed to break whatever had passed between Janet and Brandon like a film of soap. She looked down at her watch:

“I’d love to step in for a minute but we’d better go; Brennan’s is only going to get worse by lunch and Julie is going to have my head if I don’t show up at least ten minutes early.” She flashed Phillip a smile: “Come on, I want you to sit with me in the car. I want to hear all about you.”

They walked the four of them out of the house. Brandon took up his keys from a blue glass dish beside the door and locked it; as they were heading to the street, Janet and Kenneth a little ahead, Phillip pressed his hand into the crook of his elbow. “You okay?” he asked.

Brandon glanced at him. Phillip could see from his expression he was only half there; was the other half of him still upstairs? _From the Library of…_ He looked surprised; they’d only known each other now for two weeks, but Phillip could read his facial expressions anyway. _Why are you asking? Why do you care?_ It could have hurt if Phillip let it. But he pressed it down, and anyway it shifted off Brandon’s face so quickly he thought perhaps he’d imagined the whole thing to begin with.

“I’m fine,” he said, and gave Phillip’s hand a squeeze before walking around to the driver’s side of the car and unlocking it so that everyone could get in. And it wasn’t until they were all seated and driving down Esplanade towards Royal that Phillip realized at last what had been bothering him in the house, while he sat at the piano with Brandon:

In the whole house, in every room, there was not a single photograph of Rupert.

~

The drive was not long, but Janet managed to ask a fair amount of questions anyway. They were softly intrusive, so that Phillip could tell she was feeling him out, but in such a way that he couldn’t be offended. It was not unlike the way he’d allowed Brandon to speak ill of his aunt the day after they’d met. Mostly she asked about where he’d grown up, and seemed curious about the farm. She asked also about how he and Brandon met. When he told her about the plays she laughed in a surprised, sharp way.

“He’s always had eclectic taste,” she said. In the rear view mirror briefly Brandon caught Phillip’s eyes and rolled his own. By then they were at the corner of Chartres and Conti and so Brandon parked and the four of them got out and walked.

It wasn’t like anywhere else Phillip had ever been. Certainly it wasn’t somewhere he would’ve liked to have gone with his aunt. The buildings were pressed in close to each other in varying degrees of decay or else just worn from years of humidity and rain. There were wrought iron balconies everywhere with plants hanging in pots off the gutters on the roofs and boarded windows and graffiti and vines crawling up the sides of alleyways. Everything smelled the same as the area around Brandon’s house: like sewage and river water and fried dough. The streets were stone. Around the storm drains they were wet and mildewed in places. As they crossed onto Royal there was a musician on the corner playing jazz similar to what Phillip had heard in Brandon’s house. There was so much going on at the same time it was a little overwhelming. It was like his senses had for the first time been exposed to anything.

He must have made a noise because Brandon who was walking a little ahead of them to lead the way paused and glanced back smiling:

“It’s all right?”

“It’s all right,” said Phillip. He was smiling too. For a moment despite the thick crowds around them they were the only two—then Brandon had to turn back to avoid tripping over a manhole and it was over. But Phillip all the same was dizzy—with the city, with Brandon’s presence, with the heat and squalid humidity of the day which was only increasing the longer they walked. He wasn’t even sure they were on earth anymore. He swore he could feel the ground floating.

At Brennan’s they were led immediately to a table upstairs where they sat overlooking the street. A waiter with a name Phillip couldn’t pronounce asked what they wanted to drink and then Brandon—sitting beside him, their knees jostling as ever beneath the table—showed him his mother’s shop, down the street a ways further. Beyond that was the art gallery.

“And where’s my bookstore?” Phillip asked.

“Over on Decatur,” said Brandon, ignoring or seeming to ignore the searching look Janet was giving them. “Two streets that way—” pointing. He hesitated, running his thumb over the edge of his menu. Then, quietly: “It’s really too bad you’re only here for such a short time. There’s so much more I’d like to have shown you.”

The weight in his chest—like he’d just thrown a gauntlet. It was impossible that it could keep hurting this much every time Phillip remembered this wasn’t forever. “I’ll just have to come back, then,” he said. And after a moment Brandon smiled and nodded:

“Anyway, definitely for Mardi Gras next year.”

Next year. Phillip ducked his head into his menu. He thought he felt Kenneth’s eyes on him for a second but god help him he couldn’t look up. Janet was saying:

“You can’t corrupt the child that quickly, he’s barely been out of Oklahoma six months,” and Brandon was laughing. Miami seemed years ago. Brandon was already forgetting him, and he still had a full day left here after this.

The waiter returned with their drinks. “And are we ready to order?” he asked.

“Uh, give us a few more minutes,” said Brandon, apparently misinterpreting whatever expression was on Phillip’s face.

“Very good, Mr. Shaw,” said the waiter. Then he cleared his throat in a way that seemed significant. Kenneth looked at Janet who was looking at Brandon who was looking at the menu with his brow furrowed. Pressed against each other under the table as they were Phillip could feel the beginnings of tension in his leg.

“Yes,” said Brandon at last, when the waiter still hadn’t left. “What is it.” Spit it out, his tone said. Phillip couldn’t figure out what was going on until the waiter said:

“Well, we just—we at Brennan’s wanted you to know how very, how deeply sorry we all are, sir,” and then he understood of course this had to do with Rupert. Something in his chest stirred and clenched its teeth.

“Thank you,” Brandon muttered.

“We’d like to offer you a discount—”

“That’s really not necessary.”

“—because you and Mr. Cadell were such regular customers.” He glanced over his shoulder at one of his coworkers who was watching at their table as he set down a family’s drinks. “And because we hadn’t seen you in some time, sir, and we thought—”

“I’ve been on vacation,” Brandon said. Underneath the table his hand was clenched about his thigh. “Thank you for your condolences, Mr. Arceneaux. I believe I was mistaken earlier; I think we are ready to order, after all.”

The waiter’s face was a complete mask. “Of course, sir.” He took out his little notepad and a pen and took down their orders. When he’d gone Brandon exhaled, looking vaguely irritated. He withdrew a cigarette from his case and lit it cupping his hand against the slight wind that blew in from the direction of the Mississippi.

“Well,” began Janet, softly, “after all, you have to expect it—”

“It’s been a _year,_ ” Brandon interrupted her, taking an almost violent drink from his sweet tea. His leg was shaking, the knee jarring against the table and against Phillip’s own. “Look, I just—god, can we not t-talk about this? Please?”

Janet and Kenneth looked at each other. “Sure,” said Janet. A moment later they were discussing her work on a magazine she wrote for in Destrehan; she was tapping on her bottle of Coke with her lurid red nails. Then Brandon asked her to tell Phillip about the article she’d written a few years previous on classic literature, and Phillip saw it for the distraction it was meant to be and asked what he hoped were intelligent questions. Gradually he felt the tension leave Brandon’s side. When their food came—crawfish bisque and shrimp-stuffed mirliton and the crab cakes Brandon wanted to split with Phillip—the conversation shifted a little to Kenneth, who was a psychiatrist, and then they asked Brandon how his time in Europe had been, and by the time the check arrived Brandon was laughing again, that bright sharp unique sound, and it was almost easy to forget the tautness of his muscles from earlier.

But it beat like war drums in Phillip’s head, and no amount of small talk would drown it: the waiter’s sympathetic expression, and the way he’d said _you and Mr. Cadell were such regular customers._

~

Janet’s little sister’s paintings were set up along the far right wall of the gallery. She’d done six pieces in watercolor of various flowers around New Orleans _._ Julie herself looked a lot like Janet, the same sharp eyes, dark hair, laughing mouth.

“Y’all stay as long as you want,” she said. Her accent was thicker than Brandon’s or Janet’s. “I’m fixin’ to ask—” she pronounced it _ax—_ “my boss if I can take my lunch soon, I haven’t eaten since like seven this morning.” She squeezed Janet’s shoulder—“thanks for coming, duck”—and walked off.

“She’s good,” said Phillip, looking at the painting labeled _azaleas._ She’d done them coming in shoots down a street that vaguely resembled Esplanade; they tangled in wild pale purple, nearly covering the canvas entire.

“I know,” said Janet, smiling. “It’s really too bad she couldn’t have been this talented when she used to finger paint on my bedroom walls,” and they all laughed. Then from behind them Phillip heard a voice:

“Brandon?” He and Brandon turned at the same time. It was an older man with curling gray hair; despite the heat he wore a tweed jacket and suspenders. He was holding a glass of champagne and smiling, studying Julie’s paintings for a moment abstractly before looking back at Brandon with the same expectant expression the waiter had worn at Brennan’s. Brandon’s mouth was tense at the corners.

“Hello, Dr. Reynaud,” he said. “How are you.”

Dr. Reynaud’s hand twitched like he wanted to perhaps clasp Brandon on the arm, but seemed to think better of it. “I’ve been doing well,” he said. “My goodness, but it’s been some time since I’ve seen you.”

“I was on vacation,” said Brandon, in a clenched voice.

“Oh, I see.” Dr. Reynaud’s smile turned a little downwards in a twist of sympathy. “Of course.” He gestured to Julie’s paintings. “What are you here to see?”

“Her sister’s stuff,” Brandon muttered, nodding over his shoulder at Janet, who with Kenneth had moved to look at some other paintings. There was a short pause. Then, as though it was being dragged out of him: “What about you?”

“Those are Barry’s,” said Dr. Reynaud. He pointed to a series of paintings of street life of New Orleans.

“Oh,” said Brandon, clearly disinterested and doing little to hide it. “Well, I—”

“I hope you won’t think it’s too forward of me,” Dr. Reynaud interrupted. “But I haven’t seen you since—” delicately—“last spring. And I wanted to tell you how sorry I am, how sorry we all are at Tulane.”

Brandon’s hand was twitching at his side. “Yes, thank you.” Another pause. Clearly Brandon was meant to say something else; when he didn’t Dr. Reynaud cleared his throat and turned to Phillip. There was an expression of evident curiosity in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you.”

“This is P-Phillip Morgan,” said Brandon. “He’s—staying here for the weekend with me. Phillip, this is Dr. Reynaud; he used to w-work with Rupert at Tulane.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Phillip, shaking Dr. Reynaud’s hand, thinking, _of course._

Turning back to Brandon Dr. Reynaud said, “We had our crawfish boil not long ago,” and he said, “It wasn’t the same without Rupert. Or you.”

“I’m sure,” said Brandon.

“We were all remembering Rupert’s generosity,” Dr. Reynaud said. “With the scholarship he established.” He turned to Phillip smiling, evidently attempting to include him in the conversation. “Rupert began a program several years before he retired from Tulane to help fund scholarships for the less privileged children of the shrimpers he worked with.”

“Oh,” said Phillip, glancing at Brandon, whose jaw was tight. “That’s—”

“Yes, it was very generous of him. Of course that’s just the sort of person he was, generous almost to a fault. He told me he hated the idea of those shrimpers’ children missing out on the education he’d had, that we all had. So he started the program. Now all of them are able to afford high school, college, and beyond.”

Brandon’s hand slid to close around his cigarette case. “Yes, it was r-remarkable,” he said. And then: “I don’t mean to be rude, but we have to—” with another nod in the direction of Janet. Dr. Reynaud nodded, still smiling that sad smile, and he said:

“Well, it was very nice to see you again.” This time he did clasp Brandon’s shoulder, just for a moment. Brandon’s eyes tracked the movement like a dog scenting prey. “You must really come by soon.”

“Sure,” said Brandon. With his shoulder he nudged Phillip towards the others. They walked over to Janet and Kenneth, who were looking at oil-based paintings in obvious and rather terrible imitation of Monet. Janet said:

“What’d old Reynaud want?”

Brandon shifted his shoulders. He’d removed a cigarette from the case and was holding it at that odd angle with his thumb tucked against the end closer to his mouth. He didn’t seem inclined to explain the whole thing and Phillip wasn’t going to say if Brandon didn’t—it wasn’t his business, although it felt like perhaps it should be, with the frequency with which it seemed to be happening recently. Something passed between Janet and Kenneth in their eyes; they all went back to look at Julie’s display. The flowers were in violent disarray spilling over tablecloths and across the same iron-wrought fences as surrounded Brandon’s house. Janet made several comments about the paintings and how she could see where her sister had drawn inspiration and though Phillip tried to listen much of his focus remained on Brandon who smoked through two cigarettes and stared restlessly about with his shoulders tense and his eyes flashing. Several times Phillip saw Dr. Reynaud and the man he assumed was Barry standing a ways to their side by the paintings of New Orleans, watching at Brandon and talking quietly between themselves. At last when they had been there an hour or so—Julie having come back from her lunch break—Brandon extinguished his third cigarette in an ashtray which Phillip thought might have belonged to someone else’s display and said into Phillip’s ear:

“You wanna head out?”

His voice was still tense. Phillip could tell there was only one right answer, so he nodded—himself he would’ve been ready to leave a while back, but he was willing to do whatever Brandon wanted. Brandon nodded a little too; turned to his friends. Cutting off Kenneth who was mid-sentence talking about Tulane’s upcoming football season he said:

“I think Phillip and I are gonna go.”

“Are you sure?” Janet asked. “We were gonna try to go catch a movie at the Orpheum in a bit…”

“Y-Yes,” said Brandon. “I’m sure.”

“All right,” said Janet. “Well, just meet us later on Canal, okay? We have to go back to your house to get our car. Like maybe around six.”

“Sure,” said Brandon, distractedly; Phillip figured he’d have to remind him of this later. He kept glancing at the door. Almost as an afterthought he leaned in to kiss Julie on the cheek. “Thanks for inviting us to your show, sweetheart,” he said. “It was wonderful.”

“Thanks for coming,” said Julie. Of all of them she didn’t look at all nonplussed or worried at Brandon’s behavior. “And you too, Phillip.”

Phillip smiled at her. “It was nice to meet you,” he said. Together he and Brandon walked to the door and out into the midday heat. Brandon took in a deep breath; lit his fourth cigarette. Then they moved on.

They’d crossed Chartres again and were nearly to Decatur when Brandon said, “I didn’t realize how, how rough it was going to be. Coming back here.”

Phillip was quiet. Brandon had given him a cigarette as well and they were drawing in nearly in sync—Brandon smoked very fast, but when Phillip inhaled they inhaled together—and he was looking at the buildings and above them the balconies draped with beads.

“I had thought since it’s been a year—” He sighed. With his thumb he took a bit of tobacco off his tongue, flicked it into the street. “Well. Anyway.” They’d reached the corner at Conti and Decatur and turned left; they were walking past a statue of a monk. “We’ll be at the bookstore soon; do you know what you want?”

Phillip shook his head. He was beginning to recognize a pattern with Brandon: if Rupert came up he said the bare minimum, then changed the subject with hardly any warning or grace. Is it that painful to think about? he wanted to ask. Was his death that sudden?

He wondered what it was like, to have someone love you that much, that even after a year you could hardly say their name without choking. He wondered if Brandon had seen Rupert’s boat go down; if Brandon had perhaps been at their house on the lake, upstairs maybe, undressing for the night, reading, thinking about Rupert coming in tired from his long day shrimping, how Brandon would coax him into the room, shut the door, take his jacket, run him a bath— And then to look out the window and see the boat upend and sink. And not a damn thing he could do about it.

Phillip shivered despite the sun on his neck and the humidity, which crept into his hair where it curled at his neck and through his clothes and under his skin. Brandon tossed his cigarette at the curb and lit another almost immediately, chain reaction, like a ballet. He had that same pensive look as ever in his eyes. The smell of the river carried over and through the buildings—they were separated from it now, Phillip understood, only by a single street.

The bookstore was hunched in between a long-abandoned warehouse of some type and a shop that sold novelty pieces such as plastic crawfish and more of those beads and the curved arching shape that Phillip had seen now several times on the fences both here and at Brandon’s—Brandon said they were fleur de lis, and promised to show Phillip the spelling later. The bookstore itself—the door was partially open, the doorway narrow, with square stained tile and the name in gold at the entrance, shiny and worn from years of footprints in the same place. It had two floors the second of which was accessible by a wooden staircase and books stacked up nearly to the ceiling, with a ladder leaning uncertainly against the wall. The proprietor was smoking and reading E.M. Forester and did not look at Brandon hardly as they walked in except to say, “Y’all let me know if you need anything.” They walked through the aisles together, looking at books, old with yellowed pages and cracked spines, fresh with the titles still glossy on the covers. It was the most relaxed Phillip had seen Brandon since the day started. Certainly it was a relief not to have anyone come in and immediately begin harassing Brandon about Rupert.

In the end, Phillip selected three books: _Jane Eyre,_ which he’d read part of as a teenager, and _Pride and Prejudice,_ and _A Handful of Dust._ Brandon bought _Jamaica Inn_ by Daphne du Maurier. He smiled a little at Phillip’s collection:

“Another interesting assortment?”

“Well, I have to keep you on your toes somehow,” said Phillip, and Brandon laughed. The proprietor was watching between them as she rang their purchases up. It was interesting, the difference in how Phillip felt now about Brandon buying his things as opposed to their first time out in Miami. He was going to miss it, in a strange way. Likely when he went to New York to join his aunt she would get him temporarily employed somewhere close to the hotel, since she’d probably want to spend most of the summer there…

“Have a good day,” the proprietor called as they walked out again into the sunshine. It was still early enough that instead of heading down to Canal Brandon took him up several blocks to Café du Monde, across from Jackson Square and so close to the river it was pressed a little against the levee.

“I guess it’s kinda touristy,” said Brandon. “But you won’t get better coffee and beignets anywhere.”

“Coffee and what.”

“Beignets—like, uh, fried dough with powdered sugar.”

Phillip smiled as they made their way to an empty table under the green-and-white awning. “Do you do anything except eat here?”

Brandon laughed. As always it was good to hear the sound—silver on glass. “Honestly, when we moved here that was the first thing I said, too.”

Phillip bit his lower lip. “‘We’ as in—”

“My mother and I,” said Brandon, running his thumb over the metal napkin dispenser in the center of the smudged table. The ashtray beside it was coated in sugar. “I was born in New Haven; when I was eleven my father died and she sold our farm to my uncle Taylor and we came here on the money left from that.”

“That explains the accent,” said Phillip. Brandon snorted.

“Do I still have one?” He touched his mouth; Phillip tracked the movement of his thumb on his lower lip. “Jesus.” He grinned, flash of teeth—momentarily they were distracted while a waitress came up and took their orders. “Two café au laits and two orders of beignets,” he said. To Phillip: “That’s coffee with milk, but not like you’re used to—is that all right?”

“It’s all right,” said Phillip, smiling for no discernable reason. Everything Brandon said gave him that same shivery feeling. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so important to another person. Manhattan was going to be impossible after this.

When the waitress had walked away again Brandon produced his cigarettes and lit one watching at the brick wall separating them from the river. “Anyway, my mother was already in the habit of collecting antiques when we got here, so with her name already well-established from our farm days it wasn’t hard for her to begin her business. When I graduated high school she moved out to Waveland, Mississippi, and started coming here every month like she still does… and I lived in our old house for a while until I met and moved in with Rupert.”

Phillip waited, but no more information was forthcoming. Brandon had the usual contemplative far off expression in his eyes; his elbow was bent up nearly into the sugar and he was taking continuous long drags on his cigarette. In the late afternoon golden sunlight he looked like a film star posing for a magazine cover. He also looked impossibly sad.

Deciding not to push, Phillip watched at the people crossing the street to go to Jackson Square and the artists taking their work down from around the iron fences. Outside of the café someone set up a guitar and left his case open for cash and began playing hits from the ‘20s which Phillip half-recognized. Eventually the waitress came back with their coffee and beignets. It really was like nothing Phillip had ever eaten, the coffee with its almost dirty taste, sharp and dark, blistering against his mouth, and the beignets sweet with their insides tasting like the air smelled, fried dough. Brandon, whose mood when the food came had improved somewhat in that strange rapid fluctuating manner as it usually did, ran his finger through the sugar that collected on his plate and licked it off between pulls on his cigarette which gradually ran down into nothing. Both their dishes had come with little glasses of water of which Brandon drained both, and then asked for an extra with that same charming smile as ever. They laughed at the pigeons waddling with their fat bodies almost scraping the ground, looking for scraps. From inside the restaurant there was the sound of the food cooking and chatter from the patrons that blended with those outside. It was very warm. Phillip couldn’t remember ever feeling so content. 

Eventually when the sun had gone down to settle on the ridge of one of the barges on the river Brandon stood, cracking his knuckles, doused his final cigarette in his coffee. “We should go,” he said, “we have to get my car.” Together they walked back up Decatur to where it joined Conti and then from there to Brandon’s car at Chartres where it waited like a spill of blood in the street glistening in the setting sun.

“What was that church,” Phillip asked, “by the café, with the spire?”

“St. Louis Cathedral,” said Brandon, pulling out amidst the traffic to merge. “I went there a few times as a child; I can take you tomorrow, if we have time, it’s really, it’s quite beautiful.”

Tomorrow. When Phillip would have to send the wire to his aunt for a ticket so he could go join her in Manhattan. He nodded; forced his lips into a smile. Brandon moving on, with all these people, Janet and Kenneth and the others who would keep Rupert’s memory alive for him, who would help him recover… and Phillip just a distant thing he didn’t have to worry about, one card at Christmas: _Thanks for the weekend, in fond friendship…_

At Canal they pulled up alongside the Orpheum where Janet and Kenneth waited. “The picture was all right,” Janet said as she got in. “ _Of Human Hearts—_ this Civil War drama.” She looked at Kenneth. “It had a doctor, so we could, you know, relate,” and they both laughed.

Phillip, who had been exactly once to see anything in the movies—Cecil B. DeMille’s _Ten Commandments_ in ’23—said, “What’s it like—pictures with sound?”

“Talkies?” Janet’s mouth twitched. “They’re fantastic. The actors have dialogue and everything.”

“Big revelation there,” said Brandon drily, glancing at Phillip.

“Shut up, you know what I mean.” She nudged at Phillip’s shoulder. “You have to catch one sometime. It’ll change your whole, your entire perspective on film. I promise.”

Brandon was shaking his head, laughing just in the corner of his mouth. “Don’t listen to her; she watches one movie and she thinks she’s an expert.”

It continued in this way until they reached the house on Esplanade—Phillip was watching out the window at the trees and the buildings and the strange shapes of people passing by, letting their voices wash over him. There was still the taste of chicory in his mouth, the bitterness of it countered by the sweet flavor of sugar on his lips. In less than forty-eight hours he’d be on a train…

Brandon pulled up behind Janet and Kenneth’s car and the four of them got out. The sun was behind all the buildings now and cast a low orange light over their faces and through the windows at an angle like broken glass. It caught in the iron-wrought fences and yellowed the tree leaves. Brandon was resplendent in it, the gold in his hair touched and tinted as if by fire. Phillip would not be able to bear leaving.

He was distracted by Janet’s hand on his shoulder. She led him a little ways away from Kenneth and Brandon who were leaning against the car discussing some or another sport and said:

“I know we didn’t see as much of each other as I would’ve probably liked. But I’m glad I met you anyway.”

Phillip smiled at her. “Yeah, you too. I enjoyed the art show.”

“And this has been good for Brandon,” she continued, lowering her voice, glancing over Phillip’s shoulder at where Brandon stood. “After—you know. Everything.” She meant the incident on the shrimping boat. Phillip wondered how much she thought he knew, and frowned at his shoes.

“I suppose he took the, that Rupert’s death hit him hard.”

Janet hesitated. “Yes,” she said, in an odd voice, at last. “But I’m glad he met you. He hadn’t hardly left his house before he started on this vacation. Ken and I didn’t think he’d ever—” But then she stopped, and when Phillip looked at her she was biting her lip. Some strange expression was in her eyes. After a moment she reached out, she took Phillip’s hand in hers.

“See you around, chum,” she said. And then, as she was turning to her car, almost as an afterthought, almost careless: “You know, you’re really nothing like Rupert at all.”

~

The following day Brandon took him to the French Market for breakfast, and afterwards to walk around inside St. Louis Cathedral for a bit, as he’d promised. On the left the stone floor sloped downwards, giving the impression of trying to get back into the river, as did everything in this city. As if it all knew where it belonged and was impatient for nature to begin her reclaiming. There was an enormous painting over the altar. Phillip, who hadn’t set foot inside a church since the chapel in Arcadia burned down back in ’25, still found himself reflexively genuflecting.

Outside they watched for a while some street performer at the entrance to Jackson Square. He was waving multiple colored cloths over his head and calling to the crowd to watch his left hand. Eventually the bells tolled eleven, and Phillip, feeling sick, feeling sour, feeling sorry above all else, said:

“I think—I really need to get back to your house, so I can wire my aunt for those train tickets.”

Brandon looked down at his watch, the fancy gold thing on his wrist. He was squinting against the sun. “Yeah, all right,” he said. They walked back to Esplanade—without Brandon’s car, coming into the Quarter had seemed to take longer when they’d gone in for breakfast, but going back it was very fast indeed. It was almost as if Phillip had been standing on the steps of the cathedral, then blinked and was standing in Brandon’s kitchen next to the icebox, staring at the sun slanting through the beads on his window, dread crawling like ice in his veins.

He did not want to leave New Orleans. More specifically of course he did not want to leave Brandon. He was trying to tell himself they had the rest of today and the car ride to the station in the early hours of the morning tomorrow but he knew as with all trips that final days do not count. He would spend the afternoon packing, aware of time moving much faster than it needed, aware of every precious second slipping past. And each of their sentences would be coated with this feeling like nostalgia already settling in, and this pressure to speed things up, to say everything that they hadn’t already, and to look at Brandon as much as possible, the line of his jaw and the searing blue of his eyes and how his hands were always moving to touch his mouth—

“I wanted to thank you, by the way,” Phillip said, leaning against the icebox, trying for casual, aware all the time of how his heart was pounding. “For this weekend.”

Brandon was looking at him strangely. “It isn’t over yet—”

“Yes, I know.” Phillip cleared his throat. “But I wanted to say it now while I was thinking about it, that I’ve had a really good time here, and that, that I’m really grateful you invited me.” God but his eyes were stinging…

“I’ve had a good time too,” Brandon said, soft. They were looking at each other. After a moment Phillip broke his gaze, stared down at the floor.

“I should really send the wire to my aunt before I start packing,” he began, and then Brandon reached up and ran his hand over the back of his neck in a kind of nervous gesture and for some reason that over everything else made Phillip’s breath catch.

“I don’t want to leave New Orleans,” he burst out, embarrassingly. “I don’t want to go to Manhattan with her, she’s going to be horrible.” He was looking out the window so he wouldn’t cry which was why he didn’t notice Brandon stepping forward until he’d taken Phillip’s hand in both of his. His fingers on his palm were cool and dry. He rubbed over the lifeline with his thumb. He was staring into Phillip’s eyes with that same intensity as ever. There seemed to be no sound left in the room.

“What if you didn’t go,” said Brandon.

“What do you mean, what if I didn’t go, of course I have to go, she’ll be wiring here soon if I don’t—”

“You could stay here.”

As it had been two days previous—had it really only been two days?—when Brandon initially asked him to come to New Orleans, Phillip was sure he’d misheard. “I mean, I’d love to,” he began, cautiously, “but the rent seems like it would be incredibly high, and I’d have to get a job—”

“I meant with me,” Brandon clarified.

Phillip swallowed. “I hadn’t wanted to assume—” He reached up with his free hand, scrubbed at the back of his neck. “You mean you want—you want me to live here and help out, help you with your mom’s shop or something like that?”

“I want to marry you,” said Brandon.

It felt like something had dropped in Phillip’s chest—a bird swooping off a cliff, wings outstretched. He opened his mouth, couldn’t speak; his throat was dry. Brandon wanted to _marry—_

“I like you,” said Brandon. “So much.” He was speaking with that same quiet intensity as he did about everything, and he’d never let go of Phillip’s hand. It seemed impossible to believe that he could be standing here, in Brandon’s kitchen, and Brandon’s fingers were on his wrist, his thumb stroking over the palm, and he was saying these things.

“I like you too,” said Phillip, heat crawling up the sides of his neck. “I didn’t—I didn’t know if you—” Belatedly he realized he was trembling. Brandon had asked him to marry him. They were in his house with the sunlight shining around them and the cool tile floor beneath their feet and Brandon had proposed. Outside some bird was singing in the expanse of trees lining the street.

Brandon smiled. It was an odd tilt to his mouth, a little sad, but soft, as soft as everything he’d said. His thumb skated across Phillip’s. “Will you marry me?” he asked, the words caught somewhere between them.

Phillip reached out himself, and pressed his hand over the back of Brandon’s. “Yes,” he said, his own voice shaking. Brandon exhaled once, sharply, like he’d been nervous; he detangled one hand from the mess of fingers and stroked Phillip’s hair back off his face. He said:

“Well, now that’s settled—” and laughed a little, like in his throat. Phillip laughed too, and then Brandon leaned in and kissed him. His mouth was very warm. He still smelled like the coffee they’d had that morning, and like his cigarettes. His hand slid from Phillip’s hair to cup his face. Phillip’s heart was pounding so hard he was sure Brandon could feel it where they were pressed tightly together at their chests.

When Brandon pulled back he did not go far, as though he could not bear it; his eyes kept dropping to Phillip’s mouth, and he was saying something, but Phillip couldn’t hear him over the buzz in his own ears. Brandon was going to marry him. He would live here, in this house, in this city, as Brandon’s husband. Brandon wanted him here, he wanted to be with him. It was not at all where Phillip had thought the day would go. Yet he was elated; he couldn’t stop smiling.

“Hey, dreamer,” Brandon murmured, touching Phillip’s mouth, drawing him back into himself. “Where’d you go?”

“I’m here,” said Phillip. His cheeks were flushed. “I’m sorry, you—did you say something?”

Brandon’s lips twitched. “I said, I guess you should call your aunt and let her know.”

His aunt… Something crashed a little, this tight solid feeling of dread. She’d be furious—somehow she’d twist the whole thing, make it Phillip’s fault, as though it were some ploy he’d enacted to get away from her, as though he’d deliberately planned the whole thing out. Perhaps some of his apprehension showed in his face because Brandon said:

“I mean, or I can call her if you’d rather—”

“No, no.” Phillip shook his head. When he pushed off the icebox he discovered that Brandon wouldn’t let go of his hand. Together they walked to the phone and Phillip dialed the operator and then asked for the Milford in New York City. The desk clerk connected him with his aunt’s room; there was a moment, standing there with Brandon looped gently around him, playing with his fingers, that he hoped she wouldn’t pick up…

“Hello?” It was the same sharp voice he’d been hearing for the past six months, yet two days away from her had made it even more unbearable. “Who is this?”

Evidently the desk clerk had not been given enough time by her impatient finger to say it was Phillip calling. “Hello, aunt,” he said, and she let out a flustered noise.

“Phillip? Why are you calling? Why haven’t you wired me yet for the tickets? What’s wrong?” He could hear her shifting around wherever she was sitting. “Oh god, don’t tell me you’ve already let that Brandon Shaw break your heart, I told you—”

“We’re engaged,” Phillip interrupted. Brandon had his face pressed to his shoulder; it was as though now they were getting married, he was desperate to make up for the last two weeks they’d known each other without any sort of real physical contact. Not that Phillip was complaining.

“What?” Phillip’s aunt made a sound like she’d stood up in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m marrying him,” Phillip said, “so I won’t be joining you in New York.”

She was quiet—it was much the same as when he’d told her he was going to New Orleans, except that he couldn’t see her face, so perhaps slightly more unnerving. When she spoke her voice was very quiet and tight with something—not quite anger, but close. “When did you manage to accomplish this?”

It was as he’d predicted—her judgment, her scorn. “Brandon proposed about ten minutes ago—”

“No, I mean when did you find time to wrap him around your finger enough that he deigned to ask you to marry him?”

“I—what do you mean?”

“Well, of course you know he only asked you to New Orleans in the first place because he was lonely.” Her voice was curled into a sneer. “He was tired of spending all his nights all alone—”

“Yes, you’ve told me.” Phillip pinched the bridge of his nose. He could feel Brandon’s heart through his own ribs, his arm tight around his waist. He was unbelievably warm. He _wanted_ him. Despite what his aunt was saying. It was an astonishing thing.

“So I’m just wondering,” she said, “how you could possibly think he’s marrying you because he loves you. He just can’t bear the thought of you leaving. After losing that husband of his you know he’ll never love another man again. You’ll never be happy, Phillip, and neither will he. You might as well just—”

“All right, thank you, aunt,” Phillip snapped.

“You’ll always only ever be a substitute—”

He slammed the phone down. In its cradle it rocked for a moment before settling with a faint, dull ring. He leaned against the table, head in his hands. He was shaking again.

Brandon was still behind him. After a moment he felt his tentative touch at his elbow. “All right?”

He dragged his hands down his face, turned in Brandon’s arms. He tugged his mouth into a smile. “Yeah, she’s just, you know…”

“Don’t listen to her,” Brandon said. Briefly he pressed his lips into Phillip’s hair. Phillip closed his eyes. “Whatever she said. I want you here. Okay? She doesn’t matter anymore. You’re home now. You’re home.” He pulled Phillip forward so that his face was resting against his chest. “We’ll go to Italy for the honeymoon,” he said. “I want to show you Giambellino.”

He could’ve said he wanted to honeymoon with Phillip in a rusted car in a field. It didn’t matter; the feeling of wanting to be with Brandon was expansive. He hadn’t known if Brandon liked him at all, certainly not enough to ask him to stay—and now they were getting _married._ It was overwhelming. As was everything that had to do with Brandon. The idea of being privileged enough to get used to it was—

“Whatever you want, Brandon,” said Phillip, tilting his head up so he could kiss him, fingers on the corner of Brandon’s mouth. “That’s what I want too.” And he tried not to let his aunt’s words clatter in his mind, nor the memory of the books in the library upstairs, where they sat, untouched, waiting, marked forever by an owner who would never return.


	2. Chapter 2

**PART II**

They came back to New Orleans in early June. The heat had gathered in full force in their absence, and pressed down on them from all angles, even from the asphalt of the roads, and the cement of the sidewalks. Brandon drove with his windows rolled down, sunglasses on, carelessly smoking, one hand dangling out into the blistering wind. They’d each bought a wedding ring for each other in Italy and the thick silver of Brandon’s glinted in the harsh sun. Phillip couldn’t stop turning his over on his finger. He didn’t know why he should be nervous. It was the same house, the same city. Brandon’s same few friends, who already knew him, who had written their congratulations on slim sheets of cream-colored paper.

The wedding had been quiet. Brandon hadn’t wanted anything lavish—neither had Phillip. They’d gotten married at Algiers Courthouse with Janet and Kenneth as witnesses—a single photographer, a friend of Janet’s from Destrehan, had taken three pictures, one of which was nestled carefully into Phillip’s wallet. The following day they’d taken a steamer out to Italy where they’d stayed a month touring the various cities: Giambellino, Crema, Rome, Milan. At night in their various hotel rooms Brandon would wrap himself around Phillip’s waist while they brushed their teeth, playing with his fingers, running his hands through his hair. In restaurants on occasion he could get them an extra slice of pie for dessert if he pulled out his most charming smile and said, in broken Italian, “This is my husband, we’re just married.” Phillip would laugh and blush and Brandon would kiss his cheek while the waiter smiled and congratulated them. After Italy they headed to Paris for three nights, and then home.

Home. Phillip kept having to remind himself of it. New Orleans was home now. The house on Esplanade was his, Brandon’s piano and the library and the kitchen, the colored beads in the window, the paintings in the hall, they all belonged to Phillip now, too. As they turned a corner and came into a part of the city Phillip thought he recognized Brandon turned momentarily to smile at him, to take his hand to his mouth at a stoplight and kiss the knuckles. “Excited?” he asked, and Phillip nodded, watching the people moving about in the afternoon sun where it glinted like gold off the buildings and the street. _I’m so lucky to have you,_ Brandon had said several times on their honeymoon. Brandon wanted him here. Phillip figured his nerves were just from the idea of settling down in a new city.

They established a routine very quickly. Brandon had over the months he’d been gone accumulated mail from the various people with whom he did business for his mother’s shop and in the mornings he wrote letters and made phone calls while Phillip played on the piano—they’d bought sheet music in Europe—or read, or else just lay with his head in Brandon’s lap with the sun stretching over their bodies, half-awake and contented, while Brandon rubbed his shoulder and talked to people in New York or Charleston. In the afternoons they went usually into the Quarter—there was always something new for Brandon to show Phillip—or else they went into the various neighborhoods. They ate out once a week. At night they lay together kissing and talking of things of no consequence until one of them—usually Phillip—fell asleep. He was happy. He thought Brandon was happy—and if he sometimes got that distant expression in his eyes, if Phillip noticed him intentionally avoiding St. Charles Avenue or the library… he thought any residual memories were a small price to pay for having Brandon Shaw as his husband.

When they’d been married for almost a month Mrs. Shaw came into the city quite unexpectedly—they were eating a late breakfast together when the phone rang and after a brief conversation Brandon hung up and said:

“Do you want to meet my mother?”

“I—yes,” Phillip said, surprised, salting his eggs. He’d spoken with her once on the phone, right after the wedding. He was under the vague impression that, like Janet, she had thought Brandon would never leave the house again following Rupert’s death.

“Good,” said Brandon with that half-smile Phillip was beginning to recognize to mean he was anxious and thinking about too many things at once. “She’ll be at her shop on Royal in maybe half an hour; she’s staying a couple nights to look over finances.” He gathered up the plates. “She’s bringing Rooster,” he added, over his shoulder. There was something in his tone—Phillip could not place it, even after a month, but he’d heard it before. It was a tense sort of uncertainty—it came up on occasion, but Phillip could not establish a pattern, and as with most other things regarding their relationship he did not want to press.

“Great,” he said, aware this was a careful moment, not understanding why. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing him, too.”

Brandon did not answer, but something in his shoulders relaxed. And when a moment later he’d come away from the sink and was heading up to their room to dress, he stopped to kiss Phillip on the cheek, his fingers resting lightly on Phillip’s arm, and he could tell he’d said the right thing.

Phillip had been to Mrs. Shaw’s shop twice—once because Brandon wanted to show it to him, proud, running his hands over the furniture, and once because Brandon had needed to confirm a sale with a high-end customer. Now when they walked inside there was a quickness in the air, the employees rustling around rapidly. Behind the desk at the back sat a woman who resembled Brandon just so about the forehead—and at her feet lay a dog, gray-coated with black spots and long fur, one ear cocked, one eye the color of Antarctic ice, the other chestnut brown. He stood when Mrs. Shaw did and eyed Phillip suspiciously for a moment before catching sight of Brandon at which point he rushed forward and pushed his body against Brandon’s legs with his tail wagging furiously.

“Hello,” said Mrs. Shaw, extending one gloved hand over the desk. “You must be Phillip.”

“Yes,” said Phillip, shaking her hand while Rooster sniffed, now cautious, at his pants leg. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Shaw—”

“Please, call me Laetitia,” she said smiling, releasing his hand so as to take Brandon’s and kiss his cheek. “It feels like too long, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Brandon, resting his free hand on Rooster’s head. “I’m sorry we didn’t invite you to the ceremony—” gesturing between himself and Phillip. She shook her head; she was watching with a curious expression at his face. After a moment she released his hand, touched his face where she’d kissed it.

“You’re looking well, Brandon,” she said. “Much better than—well, since the last time I saw you.”

It was the same thing Janet had said.

Brandon’s cheeks flushed a little in the dim overhead light. Before he could answer she looked at Phillip: “You’re taking good care of him, I suppose.” With her mouth quirked to show she was joking. Phillip blushed too; he said:

“As best as I can,” and for some reason this made her laugh.

“I’m glad Brandon was able to bring you,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to meet you since he first wrote to me from Miami.”

Phillip glanced at Brandon, startled; he’d written to his mother about him back in Florida? The idea that Brandon might have been seriously attached even then was— He cleared his throat.

“I’m glad to meet you too,” he said. He hoped he sounded sincere and not stuck-up; he wasn’t terrific at talking with parents, being as he had such minimal experience with talking to his own. “And you,” he added to Rooster. When he held his hand out for him to sniff Rooster pressed his nose to Phillip’s knuckles and then, surprisingly, thrust his head into Phillip’s palm. Brandon was biting the corner of his mouth. He looked ridiculously pleased, as though he’d somehow orchestrated the fact of his dog liking Phillip himself.

“Well,” said Laetitia, “you boys don’t let me keep you. I have a lot to do here—Brandon, thank you for settling that business with accounting for me last week. Will you take Rooster for a walk?” She handed Brandon a dark leather leash.

“Sure,” said Brandon, and clipped it on the collar. Laetitia gave him another smile—then together the three of them including the dog headed out into the bright mid-morning sun. They walked for a while down Royal, bypassing crowds so Rooster would have more space. Phillip, who was growing a little more used to the city’s layout, suggested they go down to Dauphine, where things were generally quieter. Brandon flashed him an edge of that quicksilver smile which Phillip could not get enough of. As they crossed over Bourbon where it intersected with Iberville Brandon abruptly handed Rooster’s leash to Phillip and said:

“Hey, could you wait here for a second, I have to—just—” He made a vague gesture and hurried off. Rooster watched after him wagging his tail for a moment before looking up at Phillip with the obvious question in his eyes. Phillip shrugged:

“Your guess is as good as mine, buddy.” At which Rooster just wagged his tail harder. After a little while he sat down on the stone pavement—thankfully under the overhang of the balconies lining the street, and not in the street itself. Phillip leaned against the wall of the building behind him. Momentarily he closed his eyes— Then to his shock he felt the leash vibrate with Rooster’s growls. When he looked up a man he did not recognize was standing before him—tall, attractive in an all-American sort of way, with blond hair and shrewd dark eyes. His cheeks were glowing from the heat or else just because they were naturally red. He had the look about him of someone who had played football in high school. He was looking down at Rooster, and he was not-quite smiling. Rooster was still growling, low in his chest. He’d stood, and sort of backed himself up against Phillip’s legs. It was strange.

“Can I help you?” Phillip asked, pushing himself away from the building and stepping forward. The man was standing in a line of people which stretched out past where Phillip could see. He looked up at Phillip in a kind of startled way, as though perhaps he’d thought Rooster was there by himself—then he redirected his smile, which was still ungenuine, upon Phillip.

“Hello,” he said. His voice was working hard at smothering some accent—the same drawling thing as Brandon had, and slightly rounded, as Janet’s sister. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” He held out his hand. Rooster’s growls turned louder, so that a few people turned to look, and it wasn’t until Phillip tugged on his leash that he sat, reluctantly.

“I don’t believe we have,” Phillip replied carefully.

“My name’s David Kentley,” he said, still holding out that hand. Still smiling, tight and controlled.

With trepidation Phillip shook it. “Phillip,” he began, but David interrupted him:

“Of course, I know who you are.”

“You do?” Phillip glanced over, but Brandon had not reappeared. “Uh—”

David sighed, as though Phillip’s ignorance was somehow his fault. “I know your husband,” he said.

“Oh,” said Phillip, and wondered why David had not been invited to the wedding. Or why Brandon had never mentioned him in the nearly month and a half they’d known each other. He was smart enough at least to understand that either of these topics would be incredibly impolite to bring up.

The expression on David’s face told Phillip he’d guessed what he was thinking anyway. He’d never lost that smile. “Congratulations,” he said. “I know it hasn’t been easy for Brandon since he lost Rupert.”

Phillip could feel Rooster growling against his leg. “No,” he said.

“We used to go to a lot of parties together,” David said, “the three of us. We saw—well, there was this one man, he would come to them, and we had no idea how he got in because he was kind of—” He twisted his finger in a circle at his temple and laughed. It was as false and cruel as his smile. “We never said anything, though, because it was more fun to just watch him, the way he was around people. You know?”

Phillip didn’t. But he didn’t say anything.

“Rupert was very quick with words,” David said. “There wasn’t anything he couldn’t think of on the spur of the moment. He was a writer, you know.”

“I know.”

“It was always easy for him to make fun of that man, therefore,” David said. “And everything he said made us laugh. Every clever thing he said.” His smile was tilted in a way that was more realistic. There was a shade of that same distant memory in his eyes as Brandon usually held when he thought Phillip wasn’t looking at him. It was strange to hear David talking this way about Rupert, especially when they hadn’t met but ten minutes previous. Stranger still was the idea that Rupert, who had such an impressive array of philosophy books, who seemed so esteemed in his profession, who Brandon—himself a quiet, intense, kind person—had thought the world of, would have mocked anyone who was different. Phillip cleared his throat; he said:

“I’m sorry, I—how exactly did you say you know Brandon?”

David laughed. “I’m Rupert’s second cousin,” he said. As though this were somehow amusing.

The line moved; Phillip caught a whiff of food, and realized it was for a restaurant. Rooster was still tense at his side and he opened his mouth to say—what, he didn’t know, but then he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned in relief to find Brandon standing directly behind him. The expression on his face was tense, unreadable. He had a bag over his right arm. His left hand was squeezing Phillip so tightly Phillip could feel his pulse racing beneath his skin.

“What are you doing here?” he asked David, without preamble.

David tilted his head. “Now, Brandon, really,” he said. “I haven’t seen you in a year.”

Brandon’s jaw was clenched; Phillip could see the muscle flexing at his neck. “I know,” he said, tight, fierce. Clearly he was trying to control some extreme series of emotions.

David was looking at Brandon’s face with some unfamiliar look in his eyes. “I’ve missed Galatoire’s,” he said, in a tone that implied he meant something else. “I thought I’d come in from Baton Rouge for the day.”

“You drove seventy miles for the food?” Brandon scoffed; his fingers on Phillip’s shoulder tensed. “You always did make strange decisions.”

But David hadn’t lost that smile. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your—” He inclined his head towards Phillip, who felt a momentary urge to say, we’ve already exchanged names, please don’t make me be part of this—whatever it is. Evidently Brandon disliked Rupert’s cousin; Phillip wondered if perhaps David had been estranged from the Cadells, and had somehow forced his way back into Rupert’s life following his marriage, maybe made Rupert uneasy, and by extension Brandon as well, so that even now a year after the funeral Brandon would still feel resentment towards David for causing his husband grief.

Brandon closed his eyes. He seemed to be struggling very much to control himself. Then he said:

“Phillip, this is my—this is Rupert’s second cousin, David Kentley. David, this is Phillip Morgan, my husband.”

They shook hands. Phillip heard Rooster growling faintly amid the din of people.

“Congratulations,” said David again. It sounded no more sincere the second time. Digging one hand into his jacket he said, “And how is dear old Jan? Not still married to that stick, is she?”

It took Phillip a moment to realize he meant Kenneth. Brandon’s mouth was very narrow, but he said only, “Yes,” in a tense voice. David made a sound not exactly a laugh; he said:

“Well, you tell her—any time she’s ready to leave the life of a psychiatrist’s wife… you know.” His smile was suggestive in a way that made Phillip vaguely uncomfortable. “Of course, she might’ve had an easier time catching a more suitable husband if she was just a little less… herself, you know what I—”

“We h-have to go, I’m afraid,” interrupted Brandon sharply. He was furious, Phillip could feel it vibrating all through him.

“Oh, not already,” said David. He was watching between them, sneering. Phillip wanted to punch him.

“Yes, already,” said Brandon. He slid his hand off Phillip’s shoulder so as to take Rooster’s leash; he was shaking. “See you around,” he said to David, though it was clear he didn’t mean it, and then without waiting for a response headed back towards Iberville. Phillip thought about shooting off some pleasantry he wouldn’t mean, then decided it wasn’t worth it, with the way David was still looking at him, like some challenge, so he just hurried off after Brandon. Behind him he thought he heard David laughing.

When they’d reached the corner of Royal Street Brandon stopped, leaning against the street sign and closing his eyes again. Rooster pressed against his legs, panting. Phillip stood, uncertain—when he reached out hesitantly and brushed his fingers against Brandon’s arm Brandon took his hand and squeezed once, hard. Then he opened his eyes.

“I almost forgot,” he said, straightening. “I have something for you.” He held out the bag. “It’s just—it’s stupid, but I thought you should have a p-present. Now that you live here.”

Phillip reached in, and laughed when he pulled out a small plastic crawfish. “I love it,” he said, and Brandon laughed too, leaning in to kiss him, hand looping around his waist, settling on his hip. For a moment Phillip thought everything would be okay; with Brandon so close in the warmth of midday, both of them laughing a little at his dumb novelty joke gift, that odd tension slowly dispelling from his shoulders. Carefully as he put the crawfish back in its bag Phillip said:

“I guess I see why you didn’t invite David to the wedding,” and immediately—too late—realized it was the wrong thing to say. Brandon tensed all along his side; he didn’t exactly draw back, but his breathing went quicker, and he said:

“What do you mean?” so sharply Phillip was startled.

“Uh. I just—because you didn’t seem to get along,” Phillip said, feeling Brandon’s arm leave his waist, the brief amused moment they’d shared sliding away, into the sewer grate below Phillip’s feet, into the thick palpable humidity… “I’m sorry,” he said, as Brandon’s face closed down. “It was a joke; I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Brandon snapped, sarcastic. He dragged a hand down his face; his eyes rolled heavenward. “Goddammit, why did he come here?” he muttered. Then without waiting for Phillip he jerked Rooster’s leash and the two of them started forward. Phillip stumbled after him, feeling tight in his chest, feeling sick, though he didn’t know why. When they reached the shop Brandon handed the leash back to his mother, kissed her cheek, and rubbed momentarily at the top of Rooster’s head before turning and walking out. He walked at such a rapid pace Phillip struggled to keep up. It wasn’t until they were halfway down Decatur that Brandon finally slowed down enough for Phillip to catch up.

“I’m sorry,” he said, staring ahead at the shops lining the street. “It’s not your fault he showed up.”

“It’s okay,” Phillip said, quietly. He could have stopped, demanded answers, but it was hot, and he was tired, craving the dark silence of their house. Mostly he wanted that look to go away from Brandon’s face. It was like watching a furnace on the verge of explosion.

Brandon gave him a tired smile; reached out with his arm and briefly pulled Phillip to his side. “Let’s just go home,” he said, curling their fingers together. Pressing a kiss to his temple in such a soft apologetic way Phillip could not hold the incident against him, nor even hold onto his confusion over the whole thing.

Perhaps David hadn’t done anything in particular at all. Obviously he was a bit crass, and Brandon was likely more irritated by the way he spoke of Janet than he was at anything that might’ve gone on in the family. But people were like that, and Phillip thought again of his theory that David had been cast off from the Cadells, and Rupert had been too kind, or else too pitying, to let him go.

Perhaps David hadn’t needed to do anything. Perhaps all he had to do, all anyone had to do, was remind Brandon, in whatever small way, of Rupert.

~

The week following they were waiting in line for tickets at the Orpheum when a large hand came clamping down upon Brandon’s shoulder and he had enough time to stiffen and turn halfway before the voice boomed out, long-vowelled accent:

“Brandon! How have you been?”

It was Dr. Reynaud from Julie’s art show. The heat had evidently become too much even for him, for he’d shed his tweed in favor of a short-sleeved dress shirt and the sort of pants professionals wear on weekends. He pumped Brandon’s hand, either not noticing or choosing to ignore the way Brandon never quite relaxed, then turned to Phillip with a smile of vague remembrance.

“This is my husband, Phillip Morgan,” Brandon said. Something brief like shock passed through Dr. Reynaud’s eyes—perhaps he’d missed the announcement in the _Picayune._ But he covered it well enough, shaking Phillip’s hand, saying:

“Yes, I remember you from that art show a month or so back.” Then, to Brandon: “I’m glad I ran into you. There’s something very important we’ve all been discussing at Tulane, and we need your expertise, and your permission.”

That furrow had begun to show between Brandon’s eyebrows, the one that meant he was feeling cornered. “What do you mean—”

“Well, of course—” Dr. Reynaud lowered his voice, leaned in a little— “I don’t have to tell you this, but it’s been a year since everything that happened.”

Brandon blinked. “I’m aware,” he said, dry. Behind the three of them the line had continued to form and they stepped to the side, next to a poster for Errol Flynn’s _The Adventures of Robin Hood._

Dr. Reynaud had the sense to look a little embarrassed. “What I mean,” he continued, “is that we, my colleagues and I, have been discussing—that is, if you’re agreeable—throwing a party.”

“A party,” Brandon repeated, blankly.

“Yes. In memory of Rupert.”

It seemed incredibly tactless to bring it up here, now, with people milling about, the scents of popcorn and peanuts roasting in the air just beyond the doors. Phillip watched Brandon’s face go through an interesting gauntlet of emotions before at last settling on borderline neutral. “Uh,” he said, his eyes flicking to Phillip and away so quickly Phillip thought he’d imagined it.

“I don’t mean it so callously,” Dr. Reynaud added, as though he was aware of how the whole thing sounded. “I’m not talking about hiring anyone to do a second line or anything like that—” Brandon laughed a little, indulgently—“but after the funeral, we none of us had the time to get together to celebrate his life.”

“I understand,” said Brandon, though his tone implied he didn’t want to.

“We just want to have a few of the professors—myself, Barry, Keith, everyone Rupert knew well—for an afternoon to, to say goodbye to him. And we’d of course love if you would be part of it.”

Brandon hesitated, and Dr. Reynaud seized upon his hesitation. “No one knew him like you did, of course. Barry and I were just discussing last night that you should be the main one in charge of the planning, especially since Rupert would have planned the party were he alive.”

That gnarled creature with teeth which had first stretched its claws at Brennan’s all those weeks ago woke again in Phillip’s chest and tightened its jaws around his heart. If Rupert were alive, he wanted to say, the party wouldn’t take place at all. But this wasn’t his business, or anyway Dr. Reynaud was making it very obvious that he didn’t consider it to be Phillip’s business. Brandon himself just looked like he wanted a cigarette. “I don’t know…” he hedged, and Dr. Reynaud clapped him on the shoulder again.

“You wouldn’t be alone in planning,” he said. “Really, all you’d have to do is give us instructions, and we’d carry them out. You just show up at the venue. Which, by the way, you’ll need to let us know where this is going to take place. Assuming you want it to at all?” He might as well have been nudging Brandon’s shoulder with his own. The creature, rankled, bared its fangs. Phillip wanted a cigarette too, his throat itching for the sour taste of it.

Brandon exhaled. When he looked at Phillip there was only exhaustion in his eyes. A faint plea, though for what, Phillip could not tell. “Let me think about it, all right?” he said, and this at last shockingly seemed to placate Dr. Reynaud, who smiled, stepped back.

“Of course,” he said. “I just wanted to present the idea to you.” He glanced Phillip’s way. It was clear that Dr. Reynaud didn’t want Phillip to be there. “Both of you.”

“Thank you,” said Brandon. He took a step back. “I’ll call you with my decision.”

“Preferably before the end of the week,” Dr. Reynaud said. “We don’t want to get too deep into hurricane season.”

“No,” Brandon murmured, and then turned away. The line for the tickets had dissipated. Dr. Reynaud seemed to have spotted them from the sidewalk, for he’d gone back outside, leaving them alone in the lobby. Briefly Brandon gripped Phillip’s wrist; he was shaking again, and Phillip said:

“Do you want to leave?”

“No,” Brandon said. It sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than anything else. “No, we’re here, and I… I can’t think about anything like that right now.” He set his shoulders, released Phillip’s wrist, and walked up to the salesgirl. “Two for _Robin Hood,_ please.”

But once they were in the theater Brandon hardly focused on the movie. He retrieved two cigarettes from the depths of his clothing for both of them; when he lit Phillip’s the glow of it sparked in his eyes in the dark like the embers of some forge. They smoked them down together, the ash bitter on Phillip’s tongue. Then Brandon rested his head on Phillip’s shoulder, nose brushing the side of his neck, and for a while they kissed, lazily, nicotine-flavored, in the dark back row, Brandon sighing into his mouth, his muscles relaxing as the film went on. When they changed the reel he sat back in his seat and watched in silence at the ceiling, his expression tense, contemplative. Phillip wanted to say, you can discuss this with me, it’s all right, but something in Brandon’s face told him to leave him alone. For some reason Phillip found himself thinking of David, and how he’d said that Rupert made fun of strange people who came to the same parties as him. The parties, perhaps, that Rupert had planned. That Rupert and Brandon had planned together.

The little creature behind Phillip’s ribs bristled along its spine. And Brandon did not turn to so much as look at him again for the remainder of the film, so that the creature never quietened, but stayed, snarling, while Phillip thought of the untouched library, and the pain in Brandon’s face when Dr. Reynaud spoke to him in the lobby.

~

That evening, Brandon called Janet to get her advice. Phillip, listening on the extension in the kitchen, remembered the way David had spoken about her. The possessiveness, the way he’d mocked Kenneth, as though Kenneth were in some way inferior to him… He noticed with little surprise that Brandon did not mention they’d seen David at all. Instead immediately upon hearing her “hello?” he launched into:

“Dr. Reynaud and the others want to throw a party to celebrate Rupert and I don’t know, they want me to set it up and I’m not sure if I should agree, what do you think?”

“I’m fine, Brandon, how are you,” Janet said, dry.

“He’s keyed up from coffee,” Phillip offered.

“Don’t let him drink it after about noon,” Janet said, laughing. “Brandon, you’re going to be in so much trouble now that you’ve got a husband who—” But she cut herself off; it was not quite smooth enough that Phillip didn’t notice. “Anyway don’t let him take it with sugar,” she finished, and then cleared her throat.

“Can I talk now?” Brandon asked. Phillip craned his neck to see into the adjacent room, so he could catch the edge of the smile he heard in Brandon’s voice.

“Yes, sorry,” Janet said, and then broke away again momentarily to call something to one of her children; Phillip could hear them moving about restless in the background. “You were saying—Reynaud wants you to throw a party for Rupert?”

“ _He_ wants to throw one. He wants to know if I think it’s a good idea.” A pause. “He says he won’t do it if I say no.”

Janet snorted. “Let me guess: you don’t want to?”

“I’m not sure,” Brandon said. Even through the phone Phillip heard his _no_ clear as glass. Brandon when he didn’t want something pulled the air back from his words, leaded them with metal.

“What do you think, Phillip?” she asked.

“I, uh,” said Phillip, startled at being included in the conversation. Around the doorframe he saw Brandon watching him also waiting for his answer so hesitantly he said: “I thought it was… pretty tactless of him to come up and say it just like that, in the middle of the Orpheum.”

Janet positively cackled. “Oh my god, why am I not surprised,” she said.

“But it’s a bad idea, right?” Brandon said.

Janet exhaled, the sound crackling over the phone. “I mean, you clearly don’t want to do it.”

“Jan, that’s not what I’m asking.”

“Well… not that you’ve ever much cared about this, but it would mean a lot to people. Especially those people.”

Phillip was starting to wonder if perhaps he knew a different man than everyone else. David describing Brandon mocking the uninvited guest. Janet describing him as uncaring. He watched the slight furrow form between Brandon’s eyebrows and ached to set the phone down, to walk over and put his hand on Brandon’s. But Brandon shook his head at him, minute; Phillip wondered if he’d read his own expression, the way Phillip could read Brandon’s, or if Brandon was simply rejecting the abortive attempt Phillip had made at hanging up.

“They’ve had a year for it to mean enough to them that they’d throw a party,” he muttered.

“They were likely waiting out of respect for you,” Janet said, gently.

Phillip heard the click of another line being picked up. “What’s this about a party?” Kenneth asked.

“Reynaud wants to throw one in memory of Rupert and Brandon is hesitating.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Well, of course—”

“Phillip said that Reynaud walked right up to them in the middle of the Orpheum to ask.”

“God, did he really?” There was a moment where Phillip was required to rehash the awkwardness of the meeting, much to Kenneth’s amusement. Then Janet said:

“Apparently the old man is going to let Brandon choose what he wants to have done, and so I said, well, it’ll mean a lot to those people—”

“We had a funeral last year,” Brandon muttered. He was starting to sound like he regretted bringing it up at all. “We had the wake on St. Charles. Isn’t that enough?”

Another pause. “Dearest,” said Janet, carefully, something in her voice Phillip couldn’t quite make sense of, “don’t you want closure?”

Again Phillip glanced around the doorframe. His eyes met Brandon’s. He’d lit a cigarette and the ash fell against his knee as he tapped it restlessly in his fingers.

“His colleagues might want closure,” Kenneth said, in that same careful voice as Janet.

Brandon exhaled, sharp impatient sound. “Fuck what they want. He was _my_ husband, wasn’t he?” He was looking at Phillip with that same strange expression he wore on occasion—tight mouth, exasperated eyes. Like the world was falling into place around him and he disliked where it was settling.

“It’s Brandon’s decision, ultimately,” Phillip said, “and I think we need to respect that.”

More silence. Phillip could not tell from Brandon’s face whether he’d said the right thing. He lifted the cigarette to his mouth, tucking it between his thumb and forefinger in the sallow dip of skin there.

“Of course it’s your decision, duck,” Janet said at last. “But you know Reynaud’s just going to keep at you about it if you say no—you know how he is. Likely he’ll just want to have something very quiet and classy with him and Barry and whoever else, maybe champagne and caviar, just to talk about Rupert for a little while, just to, to say goodbye to him.”

Brandon sighed again, less edge to it than before. Something wistful in it, something that reminded Phillip of that expression he wore late at night when he thought Phillip was sleeping; staring out over the median on Esplanade, smoking his cigarette, and thinking of Rupert.

“You could have it at the old house out on Pontchartrain,” Kenneth said. “If it’s a celebration of his life, it would be more fitting for it to be there, don’t you think?”

That thing with claws was snarling in Phillip’s chest; it wouldn’t calm down. It felt like he couldn’t escape Rupert, no matter where he turned, no matter what he did—ten years down the line, those people at Tulane would still be there, still remembering, and Brandon still with the library shut off from the world because he couldn’t bear to look at the inscriptions in the books, and the waiters at Brennan’s still looking for their wealthy patron—

“—what do you think, Phillip?”

Janet’s voice broke the tumultuous cascade of thoughts. He cleared his throat: “Sorry, what?”

“Do you think we should have the party at the house on Pontchartrain?”

Brandon lifted his eyebrows at Phillip when he looked at him. There was nothing in his expression to suggest what he wanted, so cautiously Phillip said, “I think it sounds all right,” and Brandon said:

“Well, then, that’s settled,” as though all along it had ridden entirely on Phillip’s shoulders. “I’ll let Reynaud know before he has a coronary,” and then Janet and Kenneth were laughing, Janet talking over everyone, making suggestions to Brandon of what he should and shouldn’t allow at the party, the foods they should have, the drinks, the time… Phillip let her voice wash over him. Eventually he set his receiver in its cradle and walked into the piano room to sit beside Brandon who he could tell was only half-listening. Curling his fingers into the crook of Brandon’s arm he rested his head on his shoulder and closed his eyes, and tried desperately not to think of how something crucial felt like it was slipping away. As though it was still his own marriage, yet he was watching everything happen from the sidelines.

~

Several days later they went to a meeting with Dr. Reynaud and the others at Tujague’s. In the morning when Phillip woke he found Brandon still lying beside him staring at the ceiling—it was unusual for Brandon to stay in bed after waking and as such Phillip rolled over and pressed a kiss to the tender freckled skin at his shoulder. Brandon rolled a little into the touch, exhaling quietly, curving his fingers around Phillip’s jaw, drawing his chin upwards. His mouth was soft, sour with sleep, but Phillip didn’t care—there was an ache building in him, at the base of his spine, spreading through his fingers, everywhere. They had hardly touched at all since coming home, except to hold hands or to kiss a little in the evenings, and even then hardly of late, since meeting David on Bourbon… When Phillip ran his hand down Brandon’s side where the ribs were slatted against his skin Brandon made a low noise into his mouth, wanting and needy—Then he pulled away, resting their foreheads together. His voice was tense, reluctant when he said:

“We can’t… we have to go, we have to get to the restaurant.” He sat up, dragging his hands through the short ends of his hair. Phillip moved with him, pressing against his back, closing his eyes. Brandon’s skin was furnace-hot. For a moment with his arm looped a little ways around Brandon’s waist he thought he could convince him to stay— But Brandon was already slipping away from him, heading across the hall into their bathroom. Reluctantly Phillip followed, gently jostling their shoulders together as they brushed their teeth. Over breakfast as though in apology for cutting their morning short Brandon hooked his ankle around Phillip’s.

“When all… this is over,” he said, gesturing vaguely to mean the party, “we should go to Waveland. It isn’t much, but t-there’s a beach, and a little town I’d like you to see.”

The thing struggling in his voice said he was tired; that he needed a rest from the city, from the people crowding him, from his memories… Phillip rested his hand on Brandon’s arm, over the fine dusting of light golden hair there. “I’d love that,” he said, and Brandon kissed him at the temple, lips brushing in his hair. When they went upstairs to dress Brandon lingered over his own tie until Phillip stepped up to do it for him. His hand hovered at the light pulse in Brandon’s throat. Brandon was breathing very slow and a little unsteady and Phillip watched at his eyes, the way he stared at Phillip’s mouth. When he sank his hand into the soft fabric of Brandon’s dress shirt he felt his heart beating in steady rhythm against his palm. It was all he could do not to undo the buttons and kiss his way down to Brandon’s waistband, where he knew the old appendix scar rested just above his belt… Instead he stepped back, trailed his fingers down the tie.

“There you go,” he said. His voice was rough between them.

Brandon cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he said, running his thumb down Phillip’s arm. For no reason it made Phillip want to cry. _Let’s stay in,_ he wanted to say. _Let’s call the restaurant and cancel the meeting, cancel the party. Let’s just stay here and listen to the radio and read because you look so miserable and I don’t understand why._ Instead he watched as Brandon stepped back, walked out of their room. Together they went downstairs and into the bright sunlight. The temperature was such that the very air felt scorched, as though the wind might burn their skin. They walked down the street to Decatur and then to Tujague’s where Dr. Reynaud and Barry were waiting under the paint-stripped sign.

“Brandon,” said Dr. Reynaud, “and Phillip. We’re so pleased you both could make it.”

As if Phillip would have let Brandon go into this alone. But he just smiled, shook Dr. Reynaud’s hand. Together the four of them walked into the interior of the restaurant and to a table where already several other of Rupert’s former colleagues sat with glasses of water. The kitchen was serving boiled beef brisket in horseradish sauce. Despite the hour it was relatively quiet. Beneath the table Brandon’s thigh was a press of heat against Phillip’s.

“Well,” said Dr. Reynaud, after Phillip had been introduced to the others and some rote pleasantries had been exchanged—Brandon’s hand digging into Phillip’s all the while—“I assume that since you agreed to meet us here, you’ve decided to go ahead with the party?”

“Yes,” said Brandon.

Dr. Reynaud smiled. “Excellent. Barry and I were talking about how wonderful it would be if you agreed to this. Weren’t we, Barry?”

Barry nodded.

“I’d like to have it at our old house, the one on Pontchartrain.” He spoke quietly, in the tone he used when he wanted whatever conversation to be over. But of course Dr. Reynaud didn’t pick up on it.

“What a splendid idea,” he said, as though he’d thought of it himself. “An excellent way to celebrate Rupert’s accomplishments…” He spoke on, further, but Phillip was suddenly very much not listening. Because the door opened, and there was a gust of wind against his left shoulder, and he glanced over, just out of habit—

And saw David Kentley standing in the foyer.

Brandon must have seen him too, because his thigh tensed beneath the table. Phillip pressed their elbows together as well in an attempt at keeping Brandon seated and noted with some surprise that indeed Brandon did not move. Rather without hardly looking away from Dr. Reynaud who was still speaking obliviously he tilted his chin—jaw tight with anger—in David’s direction. So Phillip quickly excused himself and walked over to where David stood looking at some pictures on the wall.

“What are you doing here?” Phillip asked, when he was close enough to half-whisper.

“Hello to you too, Phil,” said David.

“It’s Phillip.”

“Oh, I do beg your pardon.” David smirked. “I didn’t realize.” He glanced over in the direction of the table, where Brandon still sat now with his hand over his mouth in evident irritation, staring with a little too much intensity at Dr. Reynaud, deliberately not looking Phillip and David’s way at all. “I was just walking past—I saw you go in here and I couldn’t resist, I had to say hi.”

Phillip thought perhaps it would not be prudent to mention that the day they’d seen David on Bourbon, it had been some hours before Brandon’s face had lost its strained expression. “I thought you said you were only in town for the day.”

“Oh, that.” David waved his hand. He was still looking at Brandon’s table—as though he expected Brandon to turn and smile at him. “Mrs. Wilson—my housekeeper—said she could stay at my place for a while if I wanted to come down here for an extended visit. So I did. I haven’t stayed in New Orleans since the whole—you know.” He lowered his voice. “Since the accident.”

Phillip didn’t want to ask. He wasn’t even sure what made him do it, except that Brandon was engaged in conversation, and he’d never once felt like it was a subject he either could or should broach with him—the whole topic of Rupert was already delicate enough without dragging in the worst part of it. Later he would tell himself he’d asked because he wanted to keep David occupied and away from the table, and not out of some morbid curiosity. Before he could stop himself, Phillip heard himself saying:

“What, uh—do you know what happened?”

David frowned. He was still looking at the picture on the wall—black and white photograph of a man and a woman standing in front of Tujague’s, shaking hands, smiling for the camera. There was a massive table full of raw shrimp in front of them. Phillip made the connection a moment before David said:

“That’s Rupert, you know. Rupert and Mrs. Castet—she owns the restaurant. This was taken several years before he died. He used to be their primary supplier of shrimp. I have no idea where they get it now, but you know it can’t be as good.” He had that distant look in his eyes. “Actually there are more pictures of him this way if you want to see—” He gestured into the waiting area. Phillip glanced over at Brandon. Brandon was not paying attention or anyway seemed not to be, and so he nodded, and allowed himself to be taken around the corner and to a wall full of pictures. About five of them were of Rupert with someone—Mrs. Castet, or a man Phillip assumed was the cook, or a thin man on a shrimp trawler. Rupert was slight and surprisingly unattractive—Phillip wasn’t sure why he’d assumed Rupert would be handsome, he supposed because Brandon was, but all the same there was something very compelling about his eyes. Vaguely Phillip remembered his face from that old picture he’d seen in the Arcadia newspaper when the accident had occurred. It was strange, to look at the lines of his body, the smile like he was hiding some secret, the pale streaks in his hair where it was going gray, and to know that was the face Brandon had seen when he woke in the mornings. That was the mouth Brandon had kissed. The man he’d loved. The man he’d expected to spend his life with. No wonder Brandon didn’t keep pictures of Rupert in the house on Esplanade. Phillip felt as though he’d been punched. Rupert Cadell had been a man, a living, breathing being, he’d stood on the sidewalk not ten feet from where Phillip stood now, and he was dead.

He became aware that David was still talking. “—always looking out for people, you know,” he said. “I know I told you how he liked to give parties, to entertain—everyone wanted to go to those parties because he was so, so funny.”

You told me he made fun of people, Phillip wanted to say. But he couldn’t take his eyes off the pictures.

“I don’t mean to use a cliché, but there really was never a dull moment around my cousin,” David said. “He always knew what to say—in any company. He was very good with everyone he met. People used to say he and Brandon looked so well together because of how easily they each fit into the society in which they moved. You could have Rupert at this end of the room—” gesturing—“and Brandon at that end, and within ten minutes they’d have made their rounds and circled back to meet in the middle. And everyone would be in love with them.”

“It sounds…” Phillip didn’t know what to say. His heart was tight in his chest. “It sounds wonderful.”

David didn’t answer. He was staring at the picture of Rupert with the man on the trawler. His hands in his pockets he leaned back on his heels, tilted his head. “You asked how he died,” he said.

“I didn’t mean to intrude, you don’t have to tell me—”

“I wasn’t there, of course. He and Brandon only went to that house on the lake when they were going to have a party; they’d go out a few days ahead of the others, the other guests they were planning to have. So I don’t know what my cousin was doing out there that night. I was in Baton Rouge, I wasn’t here, or else I would’ve, I might have seen, I might have stopped whatever happened…” Momentarily he trailed off. His eyes were closed. When he spoke again his voice was very quiet.

“Anyway, as I say, I wasn’t here myself, but he went out in his private boat at night sometimes. He did it to think, or to be alone—I don’t know, whatever reasons, but he sure loved going out in that little boat.”

“He wasn’t…” Phillip cleared his throat. “He wasn’t afraid of going out at night like that, when he couldn’t even see?”

David gave him a look. “Rupert wasn’t afraid of anything,” he said, his voice strangely cold. “He could see fine, he had a light on his boat. I don’t know what happened that night, except that—when the morning came, the boat was gone, and so was Rupert. Brandon called the police close to dawn, I think he must have waited all night for Rupert to come in, but it was useless. They searched for his body for two months before they found it. You know that? Two months. And it was washed up at Bay St. Louis. So battered you could hardly recognize it.”

“Brandon told me,” Phillip whispered. He couldn’t stop staring at the pictures. Rupert’s pale eyes. The sturdy set of his shoulders. Not attractive, no. But commanding. It was clear what had drawn Brandon to him to begin with. That body, shattered on the rocks. Ruined in the saltwater.

“He must have gone out into a squall,” David said, almost chanting it, like he’d thought this over until he’d memorized it. “He must have misread his barometer. He—he never made mistakes like that. Except the one night it was crucial.”

“I’m sorry,” Phillip said. And he was, he was sorry he’d brought it up. He was sorry he’d asked David, a man whom he hardly knew. He felt sick. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Oh, don’t apologize, you only want to know,” David said. “Yes, my cousin went down in a squall on Lake Pontchartrain. But in the year since it’s happened I’ve, I’ve somewhat reconciled myself to it. After all he died doing what he loved best. How many can say that?”

Phillip shook his head.

“May I be perfectly frank with you, Phil? You seem like the kind of man I could be perfectly frank with.”

“Yes,” said Phillip, a little uneasy. _What does that mean?_

“I told you before that Mrs. Wilson said I could leave my house to her for a while if I wanted to come stay in New Orleans for a few days, but that wasn’t entirely true. I mean it was, in part, because I do miss this city, but also—I know what Brandon and the others are discussing in there. That party, yes? For Rupert?”

“Yes,” said Phillip again.

“The truth is, I’ve been in on the organization of that from the beginning. Dr. Reynaud called me several days before you saw me at Galatoire’s and asked if I’d come down and be part of the enterprise—show up, say some things about Rupert, you know. I couldn’t say anything to you or to Brandon because it was supposed to be a secret. But now I see Brandon’s agreed to the whole thing. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Yes…”

David was smiling. “Do you know anything about it?”

“Just that… it’s going to be at the house on the lake,” Phillip mumbled. He was sure he wasn’t supposed to say that, not to David, anyway. But what else could he do? Anyway David looked pleased to hear this; he said:

“Such fond memories of that house… Every time they’d have a party there, it would be one of their best. We were related on his father’s side, Rupert and I, and it was his great-grandfather who built the house, just before the Civil War. So it’s very valuable. Especially in the family. I used to go there sometimes as a boy, when Rupert was in college. I’m sure the pictures of all of us are still there, having barbecues and crawfish boils and—”

“Phillip.” Brandon’s voice was low, but the anger in it was unmistakable. He’d come around the corner without either Phillip or David noticing. There was a tight furrow between his eyebrows. He was looking from the two of them to the pictures and Phillip felt his face get hot without really understanding why.

“Oh, hello there, Brandon,” David said. It was that same strange tone he’d used at Galatoire’s. “How are you?”

“Our food’s ready,” Brandon said, without so much as glancing in David’s direction. “You b-better come back to the t-table now.”

“All right,” Phillip murmured. As he moved around David—keeping his eyes away from the pictures—he said, “Thanks for the, for the conversation,” without looking at either of them, and began hastily to make his way to the table. But as he walked he heard Brandon, voice lowered only slightly, snarl:

“What the hell are you doing here, David?” and David’s reply, cold, almost mocking:

“Don’t be sore, Brandon. Phillip and I were just going over old times…”

~

When the lunch meeting was at last over Phillip and Brandon walked down to Julia Street where they spent a long time looking through art galleries without saying anything to each other or anyone else. Occasionally Brandon would brush the back of Phillip’s hand with his own in a kind of solidifying gesture as if to say, I’m here, I’m fine, but he wouldn’t quite look at him either. And there was a quiet tension about his shoulders and his face and the way he held his cigarettes of which there were rather more than usual, even for him.

For dinner they ate at an out-of-the-way restaurant tucked in under the eaves of some apartment with Mardi Gras beads hanging off the railings. Brandon ordered a platter of crawfish étouffée big enough for both of them and they washed it down with Barq’s and afterwards a creamy dessert the name of which Phillip couldn’t pronounce. They caught the streetcar back to Esplanade so they wouldn’t have to walk so far at dusk. Brandon kept staring down at the ragged beds of his nails and out at the passing scenery with shifting, restless eyes. When at last they were inside the house with the door locked Phillip said:

“So what’d you talk about?” and Brandon looked at him startled as though he’d forgotten he was even there.

“What do you mean, what did we talk about,” he asked, walking into the kitchen, flicking on the light switch. His voice was sharper than normal. “You were there, you heard us.”

When they’d all been eating their lunch Dr. Reynaud and the others had talked mainly about things going on at Tulane and people Phillip didn’t know. He took a breath; he tried to remind himself that they’d just spent an afternoon winding down because David had been at the restaurant. “I mean before,” he said. “When I was with David.”

Brandon tensed a little. “Oh, that,” he said, voice like he was punching the words out. “Just—we discussed the party, that’s all, the p-particulars of it, what’ll be served, the guest list… that kinda stuff.” He withdrew another cigarette from the drawer by the sink where he kept some of them and lit it standing beside the window. Phillip could still remember staring out that same window while Brandon had proposed to him. The unreality of it all, of Brandon asking him to marry him, of moving to a city about which he knew nothing, with a man he hardly knew at all. He tried not to think about how that hadn’t really changed.

“So they liked your idea about having it at the old house, the one on the lake?”

Brandon wiped ash from his tongue. “That was Ken’s idea,” he said, “and yeah, they liked it, you were there, you h-heard Reynaud say he liked it.” He sounded irritated. The little creature with thorns beneath Phillip’s ribs woke and stretched itself.

“Look,” he began, “I don’t know why you’re upset, but please don’t take it out on me like this—”

“I’m not angry,” Brandon said. He was moving restlessly about the kitchen with the cigarette dangling from his fingers. His tone was still that strange, sharp thing Phillip hadn’t heard directed at him before.

“If you didn’t want to have the party for Rupert, you should’ve spoken up,” Phillip said. “Dr. Reynaud asked you what you wanted and you should’ve said no—”

“I’m capable of m-making my own decisions,” Brandon said. “I know I could have said no if I wanted. That’s if _I_ wanted. But I didn’t. I’m n-not a fucking idiot, Phillip, I k-know how to speak my mind.”

“I never said you were, Brandon—”

“Don’t put w-words in my mouth.”

“I wasn’t.” Phillip stared shocked at Brandon, at the vehemence of his whole self. The creature was bristling at being attacked. “I’m just telling you I know, I mean I can see you don’t want this—”

“Don’t tell me what I do or don’t want,” Brandon snapped. “You have no idea—” But then he stopped. He dragged a hand through his hair, like pulling the words back. He ground the remainder of the cigarette out on the edge of the sink and tossed it in the drain. He bit at his thumbnail, staring out at the darkening sky.

“I’m tired,” he said. “I don’t f-feel like discussing this right now.” There was something in his voice that said they would never discuss it. Phillip wouldn’t have minded so much if he thought it was just about the party—he’d see the party with his own eyes, soon enough, after all. But there was something simmering underneath everything. Something that looked and felt like the way Brandon looked when he thought Phillip was sleeping.

“Whatever’s bothering you, you can tell me—”

“I said I’m just tired.” Brandon moved around the kitchen island opposite the side where Phillip stood. For a moment it looked as though he was going to say something else—then he started for the hall.

Phillip breathed out. Now he needed a cigarette. The creature was pacing and tense, raking claws against his ribs—even so he watched Brandon get nearly to the stairs before he blurted out:

“Why do you hate David so much?”

Brandon froze. The line of his jaw was set; his eyes were unreadable. Phillip could tell it wasn’t just distance that made them so. He watched him struggle with something—his mouth moved, and Phillip expected him to say something like, I don’t hate David, or even, what the hell are you talking about?—Phillip could have responded to either of those, with the creature’s talons sunk into his heart, they could have fought, really fought for the first time, and perhaps it would have felt if not good then satisfying, because something certainly was building between them, volcanic— Instead Phillip watched Brandon bring his lips together in a thin white line, and he walked out of the room without answering him at all.

After a moment Phillip withdrew another cigarette from the case and lit it with Brandon’s lighter which he’d forgotten. His hands were shaking.

~

The party fell on the longest day of the year. By nine it was already so hot the sun was like coming up through the cracks in the pavement and seeping off the wrought-iron fence which lined the house. There were thick clouds gathering in the west over the river. In the car on the drive out to the old house Brandon watched with restless eyes at the sky in the rearview mirror. He’d already smoked through two cigarettes and was starting on his third, one hand on the wheel, the other hanging out the window.

“It’s going to storm later,” he said.

“Will it disturb the party?” Phillip asked.

“How should I know?” Brandon snapped. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose; the end of the cigarette came dangerously close to his skin. “Probably not,” he said, his tone barely softened. “Most of it will take place inside.”

“All right,” said Phillip. He set his mouth against saying anything else. There had been a strange sort of tension between them since their argument after the get-together at Tujague’s. As though they were now both walking upon and made of glass. Brandon had apologized for losing his temper but it had felt hollow and although Phillip had accepted it was clear at least to him that there were still things unsaid, important things which he wasn’t sure their relationship could long survive without being said. He was still trying to figure out how to ask Brandon without starting anything else yet he wasn’t sure that was possible. It revolved around Rupert, whatever it was, and Rupert as he had always been was an untouchable, somehow almost forbidden subject. Like talking in hushed whispers in a church about something sacrilegious. A violation of something unknown.

He had the idea that perhaps Brandon had feelings for David which he’d repressed because David was the cousin of his dead husband and therefore in some way inappropriate for him to covet. It didn’t fully explain the anger that flashed in Brandon’s eyes whenever David showed up but Phillip thought it was a logical conclusion nonetheless—David was abrasive and loud, but according to him Rupert had laughed at rather unsuitable things and as such perhaps those were the kinds of people with whom Brandon preferred to associate himself. Thus it made even less sense that he would have married Phillip, who himself was very quiet and unassuming. Thus it made even more sense that he would have begun to leave Phillip out of things once they returned to New Orleans and Brandon realized what sort of man he’d gotten himself bound to.

They drove on out of the city and onto the causeway. The lake stretched out on both sides resembling great sheets of sparkling blue aluminum foil. In the far distance Phillip could see the marshlands and over their low gray-green grasses the strange birds. The sun shone white upon the asphalt before them and also upon the water where it shifted constantly with the motion of the waves. Phillip rested his head on the glass. He smelled the water and Brandon’s cigarette. He wondered how long this afternoon would last.

Eventually they made the turnoff for Rupert’s place. The house itself sat in a low-lying marshy area and the land around it had been built up enough for cars to pass. It must have cost a great deal of money. In front of the house Phillip saw a small area where, theoretically, people could walk and mingle. Otherwise it was just the house on stilts, and then the lake almost immediately afterwards. As he had since moving to New Orleans Phillip felt as though the water wished to reclaim the area. And now that the nominal owner was dead the lake seemed to be asking when its time would come.

The men were already there to help set up for the party. Absently Brandon pressed a kiss to Phillip’s temple, mumbled, “Go inside, the door will be unlocked. I’ll find you later,” and headed off to speak to the workers. Phillip would have protested except that it was so hot he could already feel the tendrils of hair at the back of his neck curling with sweat and his skin beneath the suit growing hot like in a furnace. So he just shrugged—Brandon wasn’t even looking his way anymore—and walking up the steps headed into the house.

The whole inside of the house was cypress wood. It was a massive downstairs with the ceiling stretching up to the second floor. There was a balcony that spread out immediately upon walking in and a staircase made of the same pale wood as everything else. Two rooms on either side of the stairs, their doors closed. Four rooms on the second floor. In spite of the house having sat untouched for the better part of a year everything looked remarkably well-preserved. There was not even dust upon the tables nor the furniture. It looked a little like a hunting lodge, except for the spread of water visible from all the massive paneled windows on both sides. There were more pictures of Rupert on the walls, and of various clippings of articles he’d written, and of articles about him. A photograph of his shrimping fleet. A photograph of him with the other professors at Tulane—Phillip recognized a slightly younger Dr. Reynaud. He spent a little while studying the pictures, not so much interested in their contents as in Rupert’s face, which held the same fascination for him as it had upon his first seeing it in Tujague’s. In nearly all the pictures he wore that same smile, an ironic twisting of the mouth. It was hard to believe that gaze, so intense, like being struck with something, lay now in some grave…

He became aware gradually with a rush of embarrassment that Brandon was standing now in the doorway watching him. And that he could tell what Phillip was doing. He looked—not quite upset, the way he had at the restaurant, but… wary. His arms were folded. It was more of the same tension.

“The others are arriving,” he said. His voice was very quiet even under the massive rafters of the ceiling. He held out his hand—belatedly Phillip realized he wanted him to take it, so they could walk out together. So they could look normal. A normal, happily married couple not fighting over some mysterious thing. Husbands that could sleep in the same bed at night without a third figure lying between them.

He took the steps forward which were necessary and took Brandon’s hand. He was not going to be the one to let this fall apart because of David, or Rupert, or both. “Let’s go, then,” he said, and his voice came out shockingly cold. Enough so that Brandon just looked at him for a moment, brow furrowed tightly in the center—Then he turned and walked out the front door again a little ways ahead of Phillip, that smile already on his face, open friendly tone as he said:

“Dr. Reynaud. Barry. It’s so good to have you here.”

~

The guests came one by one: after Dr. Reynaud and Barry came Keith, and then Dr. Cavanaugh from Loyola, a man named Richter from the _Picayune,_ two men Rupert had known at the publishing house in Gretna… The only person Phillip was really surprised to see was the chief of police, a man named Ardoin. He was a broad-shouldered man with what Brandon had said once was a New Orleans accent and he said he’d known Rupert when they were in school together at the turn of the century. Everyone kept shaking Brandon’s hand, saying how sorry they were as though Rupert’s death had only occurred the week previous. Some of them looked quite surprised to see Phillip there, and more so still when they realized who he was. And unlike Dr. Reynaud hardly any of them were good at hiding it. By the time Janet and Kenneth showed it was nearing noon and Phillip was hot and exhausted. The storm hadn’t come upon them yet but the clouds of it were encroaching still from the west and the air was sticky with humidity. Despite Brandon having said the party would take place indoors they’d all stood outside waiting while more guests arrived and their collars were damp with sweat.

“Hello, chum,” said Janet, kissing Phillip’s cheek. Then, looking at his eyes: “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” said Phillip, avoiding her gaze. He shook Kenneth’s hand but could feel her still watching him until Brandon came up. And then of course she was watching between both of them which was worse.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Brandon raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?” He gestured outwards. “It’s R-Rupert’s party—”

She took in a breath as though to interrupt. Kenneth pressed his arm against hers. She sighed; she smiled. “Yes, of course, duck,” she said. “Just forget I said anything, all right? I’m being stupid; it’s been a long morning, hasn’t it, Ken?”

Kenneth nodded. Looping her arm through his Janet said, “And now I suppose you’ll introduce us to the few among Rupert’s esteemed whom we haven’t already met?” She led both Kenneth and Brandon away from Phillip, towards the crowd of men gathered around a worn boating dock. From a distance Phillip watched them interact, her ease, their smiles. He leaned against the steps, trying to look like he was just staring out over the water. His heart was in his throat. The creature had tied knots in his ribs. _Are you all right?_ No. Not even close… When the thunder rumbled echoing over the lake Phillip half-hoped Brandon would call the party off. But of course he just led everyone inside where the men had finally finished setting up the food and were now leaving themselves. Phillip walked beside him, playing the part he no longer felt fit him, had perhaps never fit him: dutiful husband, dutiful host. He wanted to scream.

“Isn’t this a lovely house?” Dr. Reynaud asked him, once they were all inside and standing over the plates of shrimp and étouffée. Outside the clouds were coming in like gathered wool.

“Yes, it is,” Phillip said. He was half-watching Brandon, who was talking to Richter and Ardoin about one of the photographs. The wariness gone from his expression. Phillip could see tension gathering about his eyes, his mouth. But he was sure he was misinterpreting all of that. Perhaps Brandon had always wanted this party, and Phillip had just been too slow on the uptake.

“Rupert’s family had it built prior to the Civil War. It’s supposed to be modeled after a house in England which of course is where all the Cadells and Kentleys came from.”

“Oh, really?” Phillip could feel Janet still watching him, despite her holding a conversation with Barry beside the punchbowl. He wondered what she thought of David—if she knew of the unpleasant way he spoke about her, but like Brandon, was helpless to his charms. Whatever they might be.

“Yes,” said Dr. Reynaud, oblivious to his distraction. “A little village, if you could believe that, at Cornwall. A village—and they made this!” He gestured at the house, shaking his head, laughing. “But then I always did know that Rupert came from excellent stock. ‘A gentleman of fine breeding,’ as the great Fitzgerald would say.” He clapped Phillip on the arm. “We really lost someone great when we lost Rupert,” he said, and walked off, still shaking his head, to join Barry and Janet.

Phillip only just repressed a shudder; he didn’t know why, but he felt sick. To give his hands something to do he took up a plate and began piling food on it; when Brandon walked over he very nearly flinched away.

“What,” Phillip muttered to him, tearing into one of the shrimp.

“L-Look,” Brandon said, “I don’t know w-what your problem is, but you have got to act r-right, do you hear me?”

“‘Act _right—_ ’”

“Yes,” Brandon hissed. “Just hold my hand, and st-stop sulking, and p-pretend you want to be here. You can go b-back to your little g-game of ignoring me once we’re home.”

“My _game?”_ Phillip knew he needed to keep his voice down, the room carried sound, and there were only so many of them there. But _ignoring_ him? Brandon must have been living in a completely separate universe from Phillip the last few weeks. “What the _fuck_ are you talking about, Brandon—”

“Shut up,” Brandon snapped, his hands clenched white against the edge of the table. “Reynaud’s coming.”

“You’re the one who started this,” Phillip said, but he shut his mouth. Dr. Reynaud approached, took a piece of shrimp off the table. He was smiling. His eyes were not on their faces but on the window.

“Storm’s almost here,” he said, as thunder mumbled threateningly into the boards of the house. “Looks like you brought us in just in time, Brandon.”

“Y-Yes, sir,” Brandon said, smiling around the tension in his jaw.

The irony was such that Phillip could hardly stand it. He only just repressed an eye roll. He excused himself and walked to where Janet and Kenneth were now both talking to Barry because he knew he would not be expected to enter the conversation. Outside the wind had picked up a little. Phillip wondered if it had been like this that day, too, heavy and overcast, when Rupert had gone out in his own boat, as he’d done a thousand times, faith in rope and wood and his own navigational mind, never imagining the water would betray him when it knew him so well, never imagining that the water would claim him before it claimed his land…

There was the sound of something clattering on the porch, like stones or like footsteps. The others were sort of milling around because Phillip knew they were waiting for Brandon to give some sort of speech but Brandon himself glanced towards the door, and then at Phillip, in a quick abortive movement surely drawn out of instinct. His brow was furrowed. Then there was a knock, and the conversation faltered momentarily.

“Are we expecting anyone else?” Phillip heard Dr. Reynaud ask.

“No, no…” Brandon was already walking towards the door. “Probably one of the workers coming to tell me he forgot something…” When he opened the door momentarily he did not say anything, and Phillip felt a strange, irrational fear that perhaps standing upon the porch was Rupert himself, washed up from Bay St. Louis—

Then Brandon half-glancing at Phillip said, “Darling, would you come here a moment?” and Phillip walked over to him. The conversation had already started up again from all sides of the room which was a good thing because when Phillip saw David Kentley standing on the porch he made a very shocked sound before he could quite stop himself. He was sweating a little from the humidity; the golden curls plastered to his head. Despite the heat he wore an overcoat presumably in case it had started raining. Phillip saw his car, dark green, parked beside the others.

“Well?” said David, smiling, rubbing at his arms. “Aren’t you going to be a good pair of hosts and let me in?” His eyes were cold. He was looking at Brandon. For the first time for no apparent reason it struck Phillip that David was in fact shorter than both of them.

“You w-weren’t invited,” Brandon said, very softly so no one would hear him.

“Rupert was my cousin,” David said, and he did not keep his voice down. Phillip remembered the conversation they’d had at Tujague’s—David saying he’d been invited by Dr. Reynaud. It occurred to him that for whatever reason David had lied about that. But he kept his mouth shut; he was watching Brandon’s face and he saw the eyes flash, glass caught in fire, and his mouth tightened at the corners as it always did. He reached up and pulled a hand through his hair. He glanced over his shoulder into the house, where the others were probably starting to look. Then he sighed.

“Come in,” he said, not bothering to keep the disdain from his voice, but also the tiredness. He opened the door a little wider and David walked inside. He apparently knew all the men there because he nodded to each in turn smiling before walking to the table and taking up a plateful of shrimp. And then his eyes lit upon Kenneth and Janet. She looked at first startled, and then angry. He half-stepped in front of her although privately Phillip was sure Janet could and would beat David up on her own.

“Janet,” David said, drawling the ‘a’. “So lovely to see you again.”

She walked forward until she was at Brandon’s elbow. “What is he doing here—”

“Phillip,” Brandon said, a little louder than he needed to, “why don’t you go and show David what we’ve had done to the upstairs of the house.”

It was either very clever or very stupid. Phillip of course had never set foot in this house in his life, upstairs or otherwise. And David who probably owned his share of the land knew that. But none of them were going to say anything in front of Dr. Reynaud and the others.

“All right,” said Phillip. He gestured to the stairs. “Come on.”

David stuck his hands in his pockets. “How have you been, Ken?” he asked, without looking at Phillip. “Still going on with that practice of yours?”

“Yes,” said Kenneth tightly.

“David,” said Brandon, voice like shattered glass, anger wound through; he’d pulled a cigarette out and his hands were shaking as he lit it. “I’d like you to s-see our refurbishings.” With a significant glance at Phillip whose mind was awash with confusion. Still he played his part, dutiful husband; he gestured again at the stairs, and at last David took the bait and went up them. His hand on the railing was proprietary and familiar. Phillip followed him up; he heard Janet sigh. Without making it seem as such he allowed David to pick the room; farthest to the left. Below as they walked in he heard Dr. Reynaud say:

“And now we’d like a speech!” and then Brandon’s laugh, the false staccato one, and then Phillip shut the door.

~

“I’m not stupid, you know,” David said.

“I never said you were,” Phillip said.

“I knew you and Brandon were lying about refurbishing this house. Nothing ever gets done to this house without my consent, not since the death of my cousin. Before he died nothing ever got done without his consent. Brandon might have a share in the property but it’s by marriage only.” He touched along the edge of a dresser with his finger. Like everything else in the house it came away dust-free.

“Brandon has legal rights to this place,” Phillip said, folding his arms across his chest. The air in the room was oppressive, stale from months of nonexposure. “So he can do whatever he wants.”

“He won’t,” David said, sneered, walking around Phillip and going to stand beside the window. “Like I said nothing ever happens here without my permission. And Brandon wouldn’t do anything anyway.” Before Phillip could ask why, or why it even mattered so much, David added, “Do you know what room this is?”

Phillip looked around. There was a great canopy bed in the center of the room, and the dresser immediately to the left of the door, and two wardrobes on either side of the bed. It was surprisingly small considering the size of the room downstairs, but the ceiling was high. Like everything else it was pale cypress; it smelled like the inside of a closet. From the window there was a decent view of the lake, and the causeway beyond, thin and gray, like a snake in midair.

“No,” he said, though he had an idea.

“It’s—well it was Rupert’s,” said David, unsurprisingly. He was touching the windowsill, staring out at the thick clouds which seemed to be surrounding the house. “Rupert and Brandon’s, that is,” he added, and Phillip found his eye drawn inexorably to the bed, the carefully-made sheets, the two pillows.

“It’s, uh—”

“It’s a lovely room,” David said, and Phillip could tell he wasn’t really paying attention to him. “Of course I’m sure their room at the house on St. Charles was much finer—not that I was ever invited to it, mind you—” Here he broke off a little to laugh, although it wasn’t funny. Phillip felt something in his chest go tight. “Rupert had the paneling redone when it started going bad. He slept in here as a boy and noticed that the wood was rotting through, so he had it redone special for when he got married.”

How do you know all of this, Phillip wanted to, didn’t want to, didn’t ask.

“I slept in the room adjacent growing up,” David said. “Sometimes at night when I couldn’t sleep I used to sneak in here and we’d talk, we’d talk about whatever first came to mind, just little things, you know? And when we ran out of things to say we’d listen to the lake. We’d listen to the water coming up against the stilts at the back of the house. Do you hear it?” He paused, kind of leaning backwards, towards the wall where the wardrobes stood. Phillip listened; he thought he heard the lake, or anyway something like an undercurrent, but mostly what he could hear was the storm drawing closer, persistent percussive rumbles of thunder in the growing dark.

“My cousin and I were very close,” David said, “so naturally I was reticent to accept anyone who claimed they were in love with him. But Brandon—the way he looked at Rupert. Right from the start. I knew it would be okay if he came into the family.”

It felt—like the creature was coming to life again and snarling but also worse than that, like David was driving an ice pick into his skull. _The way Brandon looked at Rupert…_ Phillip did not say anything; he trailed his fingers over the wooden carvings on the bedposts and looked at the fine bedspread and the two pillows tucked underneath. David meanwhile had walked over to the bedside table. Opening the top drawer he removed from it two framed photographs. When he turned back to Phillip he had an odd, tight smile on his face.

“Would you like to see their wedding photos? Or well, I guess it’s one of their wedding photos, Brandon kept the others in an album after Rupert died.”

“No, I really wouldn’t—” began Phillip, but David was already pushing the photographs into his hands. He tapped the uppermost one with his pointer finger, leaving a light smudge against the glass.

“This was taken at Endymion,” he said. “Rupert was king of it two years before he died.”

“Yes, Brandon told me.” Phillip stared down at the picture, the golden sepia tone of it. Brandon and Rupert were standing with their arms around each other’s shoulders—another sharp tightening in his stomach, accompanied almost presciently by a deep bass roll of thunder—and bright sun-blinded smiles. They were both squinting as they tried to look into the camera. Brandon was covered in glitter; there were little stars pressed into the corners of his eyes and his hair, a mess on top of his head, looked as though it had been dyed. Rupert looked very dignified beside him in a costume of royal robes with a crown and scepter.

“Don’t they look well together,” David said.

“I—”

“The parade was such a major success that year because of Rupert’s position in it. Everybody loved it—he gave little plastic shrimp as throws, and then afterwards at the ball they had shrimp-stuffed mirliton from the stock he caught himself.”

“That sounds—” Actually Phillip had no idea what it sounded like, but he wanted to get out of there. The wind had picked up outside and over David’s shoulder he could see the water churning.

David tapped at the other photograph frame. “That’s the wedding photo,” he said.

“I really don’t want to look at that,” Phillip said, still half-studying the picture from Endymion. Likely it was only Phillip’s imagination but Brandon’s shoulders seemed very tense despite his smile.

“Phil…” David sighed. He took the photograph from Phillip’s hands and moved to stand at his side. “Remember how I told you that Brandon looked so happy around Rupert, how I knew he’d be all right for my cousin the day I saw how he looked at him? I just want you to see how happy he was. I just want to show you.”

I don’t want to see that, I don’t need to see that, Phillip thought, another desperate clench in his chest, but he looked down anyway. They were standing on the steps of a church. Brandon was much younger, perhaps around Phillip’s age. He and Rupert wore matching suits. They were holding hands, unsmiling. Evidently there had been a slight wind when the picture was taken because there were dead leaves blown about at their feet in a very artistic way as though the photographer had arranged it as such.

Quietly David said, “Can I be frank with you, Phil? Like I was at Tujague’s?” It felt as though he was circling Phillip, except he was standing quite still behind him, at his shoulder. Looking down at the picture with him and very nearly touching him. “I don’t know that Brandon is this happy anymore.”

A chill like the precursor to lightning passed down Phillip’s spine. Looking up sharply from the picture he said, “What the hell do you mean—”

“Oh, now, don’t get defensive, it was just an observation.” David held up his hands, placating; his fingers brushed at Phillip’s spine and Phillip stepped away from him, feeling the creature bristling along its spine. “I didn’t say he wasn’t happy with you—”

_That’s exactly what you said,_ Phillip thought.

“—just that since Rupert’s death, he hasn’t ever looked as carefree as he does in these pictures. In any of my memories. Rupert made him the happiest he’ll ever be.” David walked towards the bedside table again, touching the bedspread as he went. “He loved my cousin so dearly…” His voice trailed off; he was staring at the bedpost. Phillip fumbled out his wallet; his and Brandon’s own wedding photo was in there, creased along the middle from where Phillip had looked at it during their honeymoon, and he looked at it now, side by side with the one in the frame. Phillip had rested his head on Brandon’s shoulder as they stood outside the courthouse; the photographer had liked how they relaxed into each other. Brandon had slung an arm around his waist—Phillip remembered the feeling of it, solid and warm in the afternoon heat—and pulled him in even closer, so that Phillip’s hair was brushing his jaw, and they’d both been laughing a little because Phillip’s stomach had growled as the picture was being taken. Their mouths were relaxed, therefore, open, and Brandon’s face turned a little towards Phillip because he’d wanted to kiss Phillip’s forehead.

His eyes flicked between the pictures. Something quiet sparked in the back of his mind, something in the stiffness of Brandon’s arm where he held it between himself and Rupert, or else just the faint line of tension between his eyebrows which Phillip knew meant he was unhappy and trying to conceal it—

“I wish Rupert could be here now,” David said, and Phillip barely had time to shove his photo back into his wallet before David walked towards him again. “I mean, I know what that would mean for you—you wouldn’t even be here—” he laughed—“but my god, the things that man could do to a roomful of people… In all honesty, Phil, I’m not sure he _isn’t_ here. Somewhere in the cypress, some part of him lingering in this house which of course meant so much to him, tied to the very water that killed him, watching us here, gathered in his name… watching you and Brandon together—” His fingers were hovering over Phillip’s shoulder when there came a loud bang downstairs. Seconds later they saw through the window the forms of the men and Janet rushing outside, calling to each other. And far out on the lake Phillip caught sight of the outline of a trawler.

“Something must have happened,” said David. His voice was odd, slow. Almost reluctant. “We’d better go check—”

But Phillip was already throwing the photograph onto the bed. He didn’t care if the glass splintered. He rushed out of the room and down the stairs. He could see Brandon just outside. There was an unfamiliar man talking to him, his head pressed close to Brandon’s, expression urgent. Brandon’s brow tensed, and he asked a question. Even from this distance Phillip could see his voice was sharp. The man nodded, and Brandon closed his eyes. Phillip heard the trawler groaning, atonal against the wind.

Then the storm broke overhead.

~

For long minutes the world was in violent upheaval. The rain was coming down so hard Phillip was obliged to rush back under cover of the porch while he waited for it to abate. He couldn’t see Brandon and the others—David had gone out too—and remembered in a sudden rush what David had told him at Tujague’s: _He must have gone out in a squall…_ He felt another one of those solid rushes down his spine like lightning. He started to run back into the house for a spare raincoat when, quite suddenly, the rain slowed. Where it had been coming down like frosted glass moments ago it parted or seemed to part and became a sleek shining sheet through which Phillip could see them in a boat heading out to help the trawler. Kenneth and Janet were on the shore and Phillip went to them feeling the rain hitting his shoulders and hair. It was a cruel rain—hot from being stored in the clouds for so long, and steaming on the ground.

“What’s, what happened?” he asked.

Janet shook her head. “We don’t know,” she said, though Phillip saw her cast a look at Kenneth. “There was an accident or something out there and the trawler captain came to ask for help.”

“The netting must have gotten caught in something,” Kenneth said, also looking at Janet.

Phillip cuffed his arms. They were all soaked through, he and Janet and Kenneth and the others. He wondered if perhaps this rain was the lake or the river at last reclaiming the land as he’d been waiting for it to do from the beginning.

“They shouldn’t be out there like that,” Phillip said, watching the little boat make its way to the trawler.

“Oh, the captain knows what he’s doing,” Janet said. “So does Brandon,” she added, like an afterthought. “Rupert taught him.”

Phillip didn’t answer. Rupert’s name caught like a fish hook in his throat. There were raindrops collecting in his eyelashes, blurring his vision. When he blinked the world was still gray, gray sky, gray water. The air was so oppressive even with the rain coming down he couldn’t really breathe right.

As he watched the men at the trawler the storm began little by little to slow. Phillip could see more of the sky where it shone a pale yellow through the clouds. The rain was hitting his skin in fine misting pinpricks and the thunder had ceased entirely when the boat began its return to shore with another boat in tow, carrying the crew of the trawler. Brandon was sitting at the helm of the first boat. His eyes were unfocused. As they got closer Phillip could see a strange, strained tension about his mouth.

Janet, Kenneth, and Phillip helped pull the boats in, and then Dr. Reynaud and the others started leading the men from the trawler into the house. Soon only Ardoin, Brandon, Phillip, and David remained on the shore, in the soft warm rain and the gathering sun. The steam rose off the stones and the cars and the boats like cigarette smoke.

“Did Rupert ever set up a phone line out here like he kept saying he was going to do?” Ardoin asked.

“No,” Brandon said, very quietly. He didn’t even seem to have the energy to glare at David, who was standing there with an odd expression on his face, glancing between Brandon and Phillip.

Ardoin sighed. “Probably it’s better if I drive to the station and report this myself anyway,” he said. “It’ll be a while until they can get out here with the wench.”

“Wench?” Phillip repeated, glancing out towards the trawler. It was listing a little on its side, but it was certainly not sunken.

“The netting got caught in a boat,” Brandon said. “They have to raise it.” His voice wasn’t his voice at all. For the first time Phillip caught the look in his eyes—worse than death. Something had happened out there on the water.

“I am really sorry,” Ardoin was saying, clasping Brandon on the arm. “Of course I’m sure you understand they’ll have to look into this—”

Brandon nodded once, short. “I understand,” he said. Close as he was standing to Phillip he could feel him trembling. When Phillip reached between them and grasped at Brandon’s hand Brandon squeezed back with such force it took Phillip by surprise. “If y-you’ll excuse us, Sheriff, I think… my husband and I are g-going to go home for the day.”

“Of course,” said Ardoin. “I understand completely, Mr. Shaw.”

“You h-have my number to reach me about this,” said Brandon.

Ardoin nodded. The three of them began moving away from the shore, towards Brandon’s car. At last David spoke, his voice harsh:

“You’re just going to leave everyone here at Rupert’s house?”

The bitten ragged beds of Brandon’s nails dug into Phillip’s wrist. “Why don’t you stay here if you don’t like it,” he said, without turning. Phillip did glance back, just once, and saw David’s nostrils flare. But he also didn’t object, or say anything else, and soon Brandon and Phillip were in their car.

“I’ll call sometime tomorrow morning,” Ardoin said into the driver’s side window, “just to verify—everything,” and Brandon nodded, and started the ignition, and drove away, leaving the house, and Ardoin, and David, and the steam from the rain, and the wrecked trawler, all receding like a dream in the rearview mirror.

~

Brandon did not speak on the drive back to Esplanade. Ahead of them on the horizon the post-storm sky was unfolding in a sort of shimmering golden haze as though the clouds were backed with honey. He was smoking another cigarette; his brow was still tight. Phillip drew in a breath to ask, what happened, what were you talking about, what boat? But Brandon’s hand was clenched so tight around the steering wheel, and he shook his head so decisively, that Phillip shut his mouth. They came into the city among the slowly evaporating puddles of rainwater and the dissipated heat. Brandon finished his cigarette and tossed it as they took the exit onto Canal. He dragged his hand through his hair. His fingers were shaking.

Eventually they made it to the house on Esplanade where when Brandon had parked they sat for a minute still unspeaking beneath the shadows of the trees on the median. Phillip reached over and touched Brandon’s hand—his skin was warm, a little dry, and very soft.

“What’s wrong,” Phillip asked, watching the sun fall into geometric patterns among the leaves onto the damp pavement. “What happened out there?”

For a moment he thought Brandon would not answer. He was staring out over the street with his free hand still resting on the edge of the wheel and he looked almost disastrously unfocused. That same strain Phillip had seen back at the house on Pontchartrain was in his mouth. Then he looked at Phillip and it was like watching cards tumble—the bleak despair in his eyes, the dark tortured depths of them. The skin underneath was shadowed and reddish at the corners and he looked on the verge of crying. He said:

“It’s all over,” in that same unvoice, hoarse, defeated. “It’s all over.”

Alarm shot through Phillip like claxon bells ringing. He gripped Brandon’s hand tighter; he could feel the pulse racing beneath his fingertips. “What do you mean, what’s over—”

“This,” Brandon said, but he didn’t make any indicative gestures. “Everything.”

“Everything—us?” Phillip asked. His mind was racing over the party—the fight at the shrimp table, how Brandon had hurried him upstairs with David, out of sight… _I don’t know that Brandon is this happy anymore…_

Abruptly Brandon took his other hand off the steering wheel so as to grasp Phillip’s hand in both his own, twisting a little in his seat. His hair was coming out of its Brylcreem and fell in messy strands about his forehead. “No,” he said, hoarse. “No, not… not like how you’re thinking. But yes in a way I suppose—” He closed his eyes. “Even us,” he said, soft. “It’s all ruined.”

A cold thread of something had begun to wind its way down towards Phillip’s heart.

“The thing’s happened,” Brandon said. His eyelashes were casting thin delicate shadows across the bruised unslept skin beneath his eyes. “I told myself—if I separated myself from it all, if I left the house on St. Charles, if I let the Pontchartrain house go to ruin, if I didn’t speak to any of them, it might be different, I might be able to keep it away. But I couldn’t stay away from New Orleans. Oh no, no.” He uttered a short, sharp laugh. “This city… like the fucking tide. It just keeps pulling you back in, and you can’t ever escape, not the city, not the past, not—” He pulled his hand through his hair again. He looked back up at Phillip, and now there were tears, clinging just so to the sensitive skin around his eyes. “Rupert’s won,” he said, “he knew, somehow he knew this city would drown me. Somehow he knew I wouldn’t ever be able to let go.”

Something was going off in Phillip’s mind, separate from the claxons, the haunted desperate wailing of an ambulance siren, like a warning, like an augury… “What do you mean,” he asked again, cautious, “what do you mean, Rupert’s won?”

The corners of Brandon’s mouth were tense. His hands around Phillip’s were tense. His eyes which were bright with tears were an exceptionally pale blue, like shattered glass—

“The boat the trawling nets got caught in,” he said. “It was Rupert’s boat.”

“Oh,” said Phillip. Around him the sun shining looked unreal, out of place.

“When they realized there was something dragging them down they sent one of their men to inspect it and see if he could free the netting himself. He recognized the boat, because everyone around here knows it, and he came back up to tell the captain—that was the man you saw talking to me at the house. But there was… there was another—part to it, another thing no one realized would h-happen…” He hesitated. Glanced around the empty street. “The diver went back down to inspect the boat while we were heading out there. He broke open one of the ports to look inside the cabin, and he saw it. There was a body on the cabin floor, and he saw it.”

The chill had spread now through Phillip, and he found despite the heat he was trembling. “You mean,” he began; he had to clear his throat, it was so dry he could barely speak, “you mean there was someone out sailing with Rupert that night, the night he died? That’s what Ardoin meant when he said they’d have to bring the boat up, so they could identify who it was, and there’ll be an inspection?”

“No,” Brandon murmured. Even the shaking of his head seemed somehow surreal in this sunlight. “There was no one with Rupert that night.” His eyes were far away, haunted, as they often were on nights when he looked out the bedroom window, out towards the lake. “He was alone.”

The claxon/siren sound had reached a crescendo in Phillip’s mind. “I don’t understand—”

“It’s Rupert’s body,” Brandon said, “lying there on the cabin floor.”

Stunned, Phillip opened his mouth and found he could not speak. He was aware in a vague way of Brandon’s thumb sweeping over the back of his hand.

“The man who was washed up at Bay St. Louis,” Brandon said, “the one I drove down to identify two months after it all happened? That wasn’t Rupert. That was just some man, someone no one else knew, just a chance coincidence. I told the police it was him, I let him be buried in the Cadell-Kentley tomb at Metairie Cemetery… but I knew, I knew it wasn’t Rupert. I knew where his body was, lying there on the cabin floor in his boat at the bottom of the lake.”

Phillip wasn’t breathing. “How,” he asked, in the voice not his own. “How did you know.”

“Because,” said Brandon, “I put it there.”

Nothing moved. Not the wind, not the creature, not the lightning chill in Phillip’s spine—even the claxons had gone silent in his head.

“I killed him,” Brandon said. “I shot him in that house a year ago. His body is on the cabin floor because of me. Do you see now—” with another of those sharp, terrifying laughs—“why I say everything’s ruined?”


	3. Chapter 3

**PART III**

Time drifted or seemed to drift out of focus. It felt like one minute Phillip was in the car failing to process what Brandon had told him and the next they were somehow in the house, sitting together at the kitchen counter where not even six hours previous they’d sat cradling mugs of coffee in the early-morning heat unspeaking. Phillip traced his fingers through the sugar he’d spilled on the Formica. Disjointed half-formed thoughts were slipping through his brain as he stared around the kitchen: _There’s where he proposed to me. There’s where he told me about Mardi Gras. And here’s where he’s going to tell me why he committed murder._

“No one else knows,” Brandon said. In spite of it all—in spite of his confession, in spite of the heat, in spite of the close tight feeling gathering in Phillip’s chest—their knees were pressed together very tightly. “I don’t know that—I think Janet’s suspected something, but I never told her, I never told anyone. Not in all this time.”

You could have told me, Phillip thought—tried to say. The words got caught somewhere in his throat. But he could see Brandon reading it in his face all the same. He let out a short, dry sound—it no longer even sounded like a semblance of a laugh.

“I wanted to tell you,” he said, roughly. “I spent a while trying to… trying to figure out h-how I was going to word it, how I could p-possibly say, ‘oh yes, and by the way, my first husband, the one who died? I shot him myself.’ I didn’t want to s-scare you off… so in the end I just never said anything.”

Phillip pressed his hand to Brandon’s arm. He kept waiting for the realization to hit him— _my husband is a murderer._ But it wasn’t coming. It felt almost like he’d been waiting for Brandon to tell him—as though he’d picked up on the clues himself, the way Brandon mostly refused to speak about Rupert and the anger in his eyes sometimes when he did, his eagerness to rid himself of Rupert’s things, his reluctance to go to the house on the lake—and fitted them together himself, long before now. As though even with his conviction that Brandon was merely still in love with Rupert and missing him desperately somewhere in the back of his mind he’d understood that wasn’t entirely true.

“You couldn’t,” he said. “You couldn’t scare me off. I’m not going anywhere.”

Brandon reached up, rested his hand on top of Phillip’s. For the first time since their major fight after Tujague’s—really, since the first day they’d seen David on Bourbon—something felt loosened between them, cleared, like the air after a storm. The creature in Phillip’s ribs curled up and went at last to sleep.

“All this time,” Phillip admitted, quiet, almost laughing at himself, but not quite daring, “I’ve thought you were still in love with him. That you—that you weren’t really able to let him go yet.” He didn’t mention what David had said; he figured Brandon was smart enough to figure that out on his own. All the same Brandon stared at him as though he hadn’t quite heard him correctly; he didn’t draw away, but he stiffened a little like along his spine and in his shoulders, where he carried most of his tension, and he said:

“Oh god,” very softly, and then he said, “You thought I loved Rupert? You thought—” His voice was choked. He was staring with wild desperation at Phillip, at their joined hands. “I hated him.”

Of course, you don’t usually shoot people you love, Phillip thought. But he couldn’t help the shock that ran down his spine, all the same. He was very still.

“I think I loved him at first, or anyway something like it,” Brandon said. “Way back when we first met. He was my philosophy professor at Tulane—I used to think up questions during the lectures so I could have an excuse to stay back and ask him things. I was pretty far fucking gone, pretty quick—I used to have dreams about him. Then one day I stayed after because I really needed help on a paper I was writing, and he put his hand on mine, and he said, ‘I’ve seen how you watch me.’ Just like that. He invited me back to his place for coffee and cigarettes and things went from there; it moved a lot quicker than I’d expected, I remember thinking that, but it didn’t matter much to me at the time, because I was twenty, and I thought I was the luckiest guy on the planet. To sit in the lecture hall and watch him going on about Nietzsche or whoever else and to know that just hours before I’d been on my knees for him in his house on St. Charles—” He cut himself off, extricated one hand from Phillip’s so as to reach for a cigarette. Phillip lit it for him; their hands were cupped together around his mouth, around the horrifying words. Then Brandon shook his head a little and continued:

“I felt so special running around with him like that. Especially because he was so goddamn brilliant. That’s one of the only genuine things I can say about him—he had a mind like a knife sharpener. And he was an excellent professor, too, he had a lot of radical ideas and we were all mesmerized… When he and I were alone, he would clarify things for me, bits he’d gone over only briefly in class, and I thought he liked me best, because he was taking the time to tell me these things, and he would be fixing me dinner while he was talking, or holding my hand… holding me…” His lips twisted; he tapped the ash of his cigarette into the empty coffee mug he’d left on the counter that morning.

“I knew he was smarter than me,” he said. “But it never seemed like an issue back then. He was twenty years older than me. I never thought it was a big deal. He wanted to be with me or so he said. When I left his classes at the end of my sophomore year he finally told his colleagues like Dr. Reynaud and Barry about us. They didn’t even act surprised—maybe I should’ve noticed that, but I didn’t. I wasn’t even all the way used to living on my own yet.”

“You don’t have to defend yourself to me,” Phillip said, quietly. But he could see Brandon wasn’t really listening to him, or anyway that he didn’t believe him; he had his hand still clasped tightly between Phillip’s own and he was staring somewhere between Phillip’s eyes and the edge of the counter.

“When he asked me to marry him there was a moment—I was very unsure, and I couldn’t really understand why. But at the time I was kind of, I had this fear I was going to die alone, because I’ve never been so good with meeting people, so it felt like—he would be the only one, and I couldn’t bear the idea of losing him, because he was essentially my first everything, and I think he knew my fear, and played into it…

“So I said yes. At the time I was still in college, but we figured if I took summer classes and extra credit hours throughout the regular semester then we could get married, honeymoon, and move in together by the late summer of ’27. And indeed that’s what ended up happening—by the time I graduated I was barely twenty-two, and everything felt so rushed, but all the time he just kept persisting: didn’t I want this, didn’t I want us to live together, make him happy, etc.?”

Phillip remembered the tension in Brandon’s shoulders in the wedding photo and squeezed his hand. Brandon crushed the remainder of his cigarette out in the ashtray.

“We honeymooned in Greece. He insisted we go a lot of different places—I don’t even remember what all of them were anymore. It was there—one day we were in a museum, looking at paintings, Rembrandt or whoever, and I said something offhanded about the colors looking well together and he asked if I knew what the painting was symbolizing with the reds offset by the blues and when I told him no, I just thought it looked nice, he started laughing. He laughed for a good ten seconds and then he said, ‘Well, you must not have paid as much attention in Reynaud’s classes as I thought you did.’ And that was just the start of it. Do you remember when we first met—those plays I took you to? He would’ve never allowed that, at least, not plays like those, in that order. Everything had to have some intellectual impact or else it was worthless, a waste of time. It wasn’t—it shouldn’t have been as big a surprise to learn he felt that way, because to an extent he was like that before we got married. But he used to laugh at other people’s stupidity with me. I didn’t think…

“Anyway I wasn’t cultured, not in the way he wanted. I’ve never had an eye for artistic things. He put that in me, he instilled this appreciation for art and literature in me I would not have thought to have otherwise. And I hated it, I hated every second of it because I knew it wasn’t mine, not naturally, and that even if I tried as hard as I could to see paintings the way he did I was never going to be good enough, never analytical enough. He made sure I knew that. I said something rude about your aunt once, that she didn’t appreciate art, or something of that nature… I would’ve never said that before Rupert taught it to me. Ten years with someone… it’s the same as rote memorization of lessons in school, except I was never praised for memorizing the right things to say. All Rupert could do was find fault in the things I didn’t understand.”

He swept his hand through his hair. He seemed to have forgotten he was still holding Phillip’s because his grip was vicelike, yet Phillip didn’t dare move. Out in the street somewhere he could hear the fine strains of jazz.

“We went on a lot of trips for a few years, various parts of Europe—Greece, Milan, Barcelona, Florence… you know, all the places he thought would sound best in scrapbooks, or later when he was talking about it with his friends. Then he slowed down; he said he wanted to stick closer to home, and I agreed, because I kept thinking if I said yes to everything he suggested maybe he’d—” Hand in hair again. Another cigarette was produced from the pack and balanced delicately in the nicotine sallow place between Brandon’s thumb and forefinger. “Anyway, once we started staying here more I became the thing he wanted to take to every event to make himself look good—like, because we looked good together, and people respected him so they respected us, but also to make himself look more educated. If people asked me questions he could cut in and answer for me. Or sometimes he’d let me answer because usually whatever I said was wrong and then he could correct me and all his friends would be impressed. He was very clever about it. He did it in a way that made it look like we were in cahoots about the whole thing. I felt sick to my stomach about half the time after those parties. Or when he’d bring us to Brennan’s and we’d have breakfast with Reynaud and Barry or whoever. Janet was right, when you first met her, she said I’d lost a lot of weight last time we really talked… that was why.

“Also there was David to contend with. When I first met him I was only dating Rupert and David was cordial to me, and truthfully I looked down on him a little because I was pretty full of myself in those days and you know how fawning he is. By the time I figured out what kind of person he really was it was far too late. I didn’t really see much of him until Rupert and I stopped touring Europe and settled down. We used to go to parties with him too, and he and Rupert liked to mock everyone there—including me, if I didn’t contribute. He came on to Janet a few times, even though she was already married to Kenneth and pregnant with their little girl. I told Rupert to make him stop and Rupert just sneered at me. ‘He’s a grown man, isn’t he? He can have fun if he wants.’”

It was completely silent in the kitchen except for Brandon’s voice and the crinkle of the cigarette as it burnt out. He took a breath; his mouth was very tight at the corners. Then he said:

“The first time I caught them in bed together, I thought I was hallucinating.”

Phillip was trying to keep his expression neutral, not wanting Brandon to think he was judging. But he felt his eyebrows creep up nearly into his hairline. Like in a clarion flash he remembered the way David had looked at the pictures of Rupert in Tujague’s; speaking of Brandon wanting to marry Rupert upstairs at the house on Pontchartrain: _naturally I was reticent to accept anyone who claimed they were in love with him._

“I couldn’t tell anyone,” Brandon said. “Who in the hell would have believed me? The most reputed professor at Tulane, the most talented writer in the _Picayune,_ fucking his cousin?” He made a harsh sound Phillip realized belatedly was supposed to be a laugh. “I tried confronting him about it and he brushed me off, he said it had been going on for years and if I didn’t like it, it was too bad. I wasn’t going to make a spectacle of him, of our marriage, at the courthouse, where everyone knew him. He cited some goddamn philosophical text about men taking on multiple lovers through the course of their marriage and god help me I fucking believed him, I don’t even think that’s a real passage but I couldn’t think, I couldn’t do anything except sit back and let it happen. He was coming home to St. Charles every night, after all. I figured as long as he kept that part of his life in the house on Pontchartrain I wouldn’t worry about it.

“But then he started getting worse. I adopted Rooster from a shelter in Lafayette and drove him all the way out here and Rupert told me I wasn’t allowed to keep him at the house because he hated dogs, and so did David.”

 _Rupert was allergic,_ Phillip remembered Brandon telling him, the first night they’d driven into New Orleans. Rooster snarling at David outside Galatoire’s. He pressed their knees together tighter. Brandon closed his eyes.

“He stayed at the house on the lake a lot with David. We had parties there, those parties where they’d mock the guests and then turn and force me to contribute to conversations about which I knew nothing. He’d take me out with the shrimping fleet sometimes and they’d all speak Cajun French and laugh at me because I couldn’t. I had to put up with his friends, his colleagues at the newspaper, at the college, at the publishing house. That parade he was king in, Endymion—he kept protesting people’s requests but I knew he really wanted to do it, and then David told him he’d look fine in regal robes, in front of me, in front of half a crowd of people, just so I couldn’t hit him, and so that Rupert would say yes. It was the only parade I’ve ever been in and I was fucking miserable the entire time.

“In retrospect I feel incredibly stupid I didn’t just file for divorce but you have to understand at the time it didn’t feel possible. I was so terrified of what he could do, what he could say. That he could make me look like a fool in front of all his friends any time he liked. It was irrational. But it was—god, my whole life…” Momentarily he fell silent; he finished his cigarette and pressed his hand into his eyes. The other he still had not let go of Phillip’s.

“When he retired from Tulane things got quiet,” he said, finally. “I thought perhaps I could grow used to it—if he just slept with David and didn’t throw it in my face, if he kept up with the publishing house in Gretna, if he didn’t drag me places maybe I could deal with everything. But then he went, he drove out to Metairie one day as he was prone to do occasionally for business and came back late. He didn’t come to the house on St. Charles; he phoned me from wherever he was and said he was going out to the lake. That he wouldn’t be back until the morning. I thought he was going out to meet David, and it was like something went off in my brain—I couldn’t stand it anymore. I set the phone down, I got my gun from the bureau drawer—I don’t know, I can’t say if I was planning anything or if I just wanted to scare the two of them—and I drove out there too. I parked my car next to his. I went inside.

“He was alone, in that downstairs area. He was sitting one of the chairs and smoking. He looked tired; his hair had gone nearly all gray by then, he was in his early fifties and it was showing. He didn’t turn around when I walked up to him. He just said, ‘Haven’t you learned by now that when you chase me like this it makes you look absolutely ridiculous?’

“I told him I couldn’t stand it any longer. I said I was sick of how he treated me, how he belittled everything I said or did, his affair with David, all of it. ‘I want a divorce,’ I said. ‘I don’t care how it makes you look in the papers. I want you gone.’

“He laughed a little. ‘A couple of queers getting divorced,’ he said. ‘What reason are you going to give them? “Oh, Your Honor, he wouldn’t suck me down all the way—”’

“‘Infidelity is considered a charge serious enough for divorce,’ I said. ‘Or I can tell them you’ve been abusing me.’

“‘Abusing?’ he said, and laughed harder. He stubbed out his cigarette and stood up, facing me; I had put the gun in my pocket, so he didn’t see it. ‘What, because I stopped stroking your ego every time I spoke to you once we were married? “Your Honor, my pride is bruised, my husband doesn’t praise me for being an idiot—”’

“‘Look,’ I said, ‘you aren’t happy with me, and I’m miserable, too. Why don’t we just end it now?’

“But he wasn’t, he wouldn’t listen. He was still laughing at me. He said it would look ridiculous, my trying to divorce him after ten years because I was unhappy. ‘All couples go through rough patches,’ he said, ‘and you’d be going up against me. _Me._ What judge is going to believe that we aren’t the perfect couple? What judge is going to believe your word against mine when you say I’ve been fucking David? Face it, Brandon,’ he said, lighting another cigarette, smiling, ‘you’re stuck with me. Although I certainly could have chosen a more interesting partner to saddle myself with forever.

“‘Maybe that’s what I’ll do,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll go back to Tulane and find another freshman as willing as you were to swallow more than just my lectures. Or maybe they have one like that in Gretna. I’ll take another boy who’ll appreciate what I can do for him, who might actually be able to contribute something to conversations other than just standing there and thinking he looks pretty. You can move downstairs, sleep in the guest room. Whatever boy I bring home this time certainly won’t mind what I get up to in my bed—’

“I killed him while he was still talking. I saw his mouth freeze in that smile. I watched him go over backwards against the chair and land on the floor. The bullet passed through just below his ribcage. His cigarette fell out of his hand and I remember the first thought I had was that I needed to put it out before it caught the whole house on fire.”

His hand in Phillip’s was trembling violently. He’d opened his eyes again; they were fever-bright and glassy. He was staring at the Mardi Gras beads in the window.

“There was so much blood,” he said. “I couldn’t believe—all the education in the world he’d given me hadn’t prepared me for how much blood there would be. I kept, for a while I left his body there and I kept going back and forth from the lake with water to soak it up. By the time I was done he’d stopped bleeding.

“I carried him out to his boat, where he always left it docked when he wasn’t using it. He’d lost some weight recently so it was easier than I’d imagined. It was very dark because there was a new moon, and it was late enough that very few cars were passing by on the causeway. I put him in the cabin; I set out into the water. He’d taught me enough about sailing that I knew mostly what I was doing, and we got pretty far out. When the boat seemed a safe distance from the shore I took a spike and drove it through the planking of the hull. I had opened the seacocks and the water began to come in fast. I climbed over into the dinghy and pulled away. I watched the boat heel over and sink. She went down, she carried him down with her. The lake took them like it had been waiting. I pulled back to shore; I went inside and went into the guest room upstairs and went to sleep. When I woke in the morning I drove back to the house on St. Charles and called the police. I said Rupert hadn’t been home all night. They found his car still at the house. The floor inside was mostly dry by that point so they weren’t suspicious of that. By the time the other body washed up in Bay St. Louis everyone had been assuming Rupert was dead for a long time. Janet’s older brother came down from Kentwood where he has a junkyard and picked up Rupert’s car. I never saw it again.”

Brandon looked at last at Phillip. His hand was over his mouth. Then it was on top of their joined hands.

“I should’ve gone out farther,” he said. “I should have remembered where the trawlers go during shrimping season.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Phillip said. His voice was shockingly loud to his own ears; he’d been listening to Brandon talk for so long he’d forgotten there was any other way to be. “You did the best you could under the circumstances.”

Brandon shrugged. He bit his mouth; the tooth caught his skin, left a white mark on his lip. “When they raise the boat tonight they’re going to see his body up close,” he said, “and they’ll know it’s him.”

“How could they?”

“His wedding ring—it has our initials engraved inside the band—and his class ring from Tulane. I should’ve r-removed them that night but I wasn’t thinking.” He hadn’t stuttered the whole time he’d been talking about Rupert; now he gritted his teeth, shook his head. “He used to mock me for that too; I stuttered worse in college and right after and he and David used to repeat what I said until I trained myself to s-stop—”

“All right,” said Phillip softly, stroking his thumb over the back of Brandon’s hand. Leaning in and pressing his forehead to Brandon’s shoulder, kissing the round of bone there where it pressed against his shirt. “It’s all right, Brandon. It’s over now. He’s gone.”

For several minutes they sat unspeaking like that; Phillip’s head on Brandon’s shoulder, adjusting their hands so that he could just keep stroking Brandon’s. Once or twice he lifted his head so he could kiss the soft spot beneath Brandon’s jaw or at his temple where his hair was very dark and smelled of rain and cedarwood. The air between them was freshening all the time. Every second of every minute that carried them away from the weeks Phillip had spent thinking Brandon was still hung up over Rupert. Every moment he spent realizing Rupert had made Brandon utterly miserable, and that Brandon had killed him, that he was glad Rupert was gone. That Rupert had had a hold over everything, every aspect of Brandon’s life, every person Brandon knew—except Phillip. That Brandon had taken the house on Esplanade and married Phillip because he knew he needed to try and get past it all.

“During the inquest—” Phillip began, after a long while. Brandon shook his head. His eyes were tense.

“I don’t know what I’m going to say,” he said. “They’re going to know it’s Rupert.”

“If you told them you think he went below for something,” Phillip suggested, “and a squall came up unexpectedly, and he got caught down there.”

“I—maybe. Maybe.” He sounded doubtful. It was clear that while the fear of discovery had lain with him for the past year the actuality of it had not once occurred to him. Phillip wondered what it must be like to have relied on someone for a decade to make your plans and form your life, and then suddenly find yourself without that support system due to a decision you yourself made.

“Anyway David thinks he got caught in a squall,” Phillip said, “so there’s half the battle right there.”

Brandon kind of snorted. “Well, if David thinks,” he said, wry, and looked at Phillip. His eyes were clear glass in the afternoon sun. There was the edge of something like a smile in his mouth. Withdrawing one hand from Phillip’s he reached up and curved his fingers beneath Phillip’s jaw. It was perhaps the most tender he’d ever touched him.

“Thank you,” he said, very quietly. “Thank you.”

The tight thing was unspooling in Phillip’s chest. “You don’t have to—”

“I’m sorry for all the shit I’ve put you through,” Brandon said. “All this time.”

“You were figuring things out,” Phillip said. Brandon laughed jaggedly.

“It’s no excuse,” he said. “I could have told you all this when we met. I should have told you. All this time I’ve felt totally fucking alone in my own head and all I had to do was—” But then he broke off. His hand was still on Phillip’s jaw against his pulse and he moved it upwards, over his cheek, into his hair. He pulled him forward gently by the back of his head and kissed him; his mouth was soft and chapped and tasted a little of the sea. He detangled their hands for the first time since their conversation had started and ran his palm up Phillip’s thigh beneath the kitchen counter. The feeling of it sent shockwaves blistering through Phillip; he could not remember the last time Brandon had touched him like that.

“Whatever happens,” Phillip said. “I’m here, all right? I promise. I’m right here.”

Brandon nodded like he couldn’t get the words out or else just didn’t want to take the time. He was kissing him like he hadn’t since they were on their honeymoon. The brushfire heat of his mouth devouring, consuming—like the dust storms that came up on the Oklahoma plains in the dry season. Like the water under/around this city. Like some torn thing at last mended. He exhaled shakily into Phillip’s mouth. When Phillip put his own hands on Brandon’s jaw he made a noise broken and suffocated in the back of his throat. Eventually they got up and moved upstairs.

~

They were stretched out over their bed. Brandon was very pale and beautiful in the afternoon sun which ran in soft golden streaks through the window. Phillip’s mouth was at the straining cord of muscle at his inner thigh where he could feel his pulse racing beneath the burning skin. He was sucking a bruise into it and Brandon’s hand kept tightening reflexively in his hair. Eventually he said something in this unexpected rough voice and Phillip kissed his way back up—over the trembling flat stomach and the arched neck with the skin all flavored with salt. When he reached Brandon’s mouth he touched his lower lip with his thumb and Brandon sucked it in, biting the pad. Phillip’s hips jerked up a little and he felt their cocks drag together and had to drop his head against Brandon’s shoulder to keep from making any kind of embarrassing noise.

“What’d you, what—” He was having remarkable trouble speaking. “You said something.”

Brandon laughed softly through his teeth. “I said fuck me,” he said, and Phillip’s hips shocked forward again. They’d last had sex in a hotel in Crema the night before they’d come home—a room barely large enough for the two of them, with stone walls and absolutely no air, so that they had to crank the window out towards the blueish mountains that loomed in sinister contrast to the sky in the gloaming. Phillip had dragged Brandon forward across the mattress by his hips and fucked him half-standing with his bare feet on the frozen floor. They’d kissed tasting of wine and sauce. He remembered Brandon had a strange look on his face when they were done. He didn’t have that look now. He just looked present. Present and flushed in the face and hopeful.

For answer Phillip reached between them and pressed his thumb a little inside Brandon in the hot tight place of him which made him tense momentarily and then turn Phillip’s jaw a little to the left so they could kiss. He bent his knees up to give Phillip better leverage. His nails were scratchy against Phillip’s back and along his scalp. Phillip kissed him along his jaw, down his neck, over his shoulder… He pushed at last inside him with the late afternoon sun spilling over their joined bodies and hardly more sound in the room than Brandon’s sharp, uneven breaths, and the jazz filtering in from outside, moody and seductive as the river.

~

The following morning they were eating breakfast with their hands tangled between them—it made it difficult indeed to reach for things and to hold the fork, but neither Brandon nor Phillip were inclined to let go—when the phone rang. They exchanged a look—then Brandon got up and went to the phone beside the fridge. He made a gesture towards the one in the adjacent room and Phillip picked up the receiver just as Ardoin was saying:

“—really is Rupert, Brandon, I’m sorry.”

If Phillip picked up the phone and carried it as far as its cord would allow he could just see Brandon’s face around the wall. Sitting on the piano bench he watched Brandon pinch the bridge of his nose. He leaned kind of downwards, resting his elbows on the counter. He said:

“That’s shocking. Evidently I was mistaken about the other… the first body I identified.”

“Yes,” said Ardoin, sympathetically. “But considering the circumstances I don’t think anyone could blame you. Likely a storm came up without warning and surprised him—you know how it can be out there.”

“I’m sure that’s right,” said Brandon, a bit weakly. There was a pause. He glanced through his fingers at Phillip. Then he said, “I suppose that means there really will be an inquest, then.”

“Yes,” said Ardoin. “I’m trying to schedule it for as soon as possible at the courthouse so we can get it over with but I don’t know—we have to have the boat builder out and we aren’t sure when he’ll be free.”

Brandon’s head shot up. “The b-builder?”

“Yes, so he can look over the boat, since it’s been in the water for so long, and so he can make a statement at the inquest. It’s purely a formality, you know.”

“I—” Again Brandon looked at Phillip. “Yes.”

“And it should help with the conclusion that he went under and got stuck—perhaps the door jammed due to the pressure from the storm.”

Brandon was covering his hand with his mouth. “Yes,” he said, barely audible. “I’m sure that’s, yes.”

“Well,” said Ardoin, “I’m sure everything will be all right.”

“I hope so.”

“It’ll be over very quickly. Afterwards perhaps we could get together again—under better circumstances than yesterday.”

“Sure, yeah,” said Brandon. He had closed his eyes. “Thank you, Sheriff Ardoin.”

“I’ll let you know when I’ve scheduled the inquest,” he said. “It should be sometime early next week.”

“Okay,” said Brandon. “Goodbye.” He waited a moment, digging his fingers into the corners of his eyes. Then he hung up the receiver. Phillip set his own down; walked forward. Brandon’s shoulders were hunched beneath the thin fabric of his nightshirt. Phillip put his fingertips to the tectonic pressings of Brandon’s spine and Brandon turned in his arms, wrapping his own around Phillip’s waist, dropping his head on his shoulder.

“Oh my god,” he said, rough ruined wrecked voice. “Oh my god.”

“Ardoin thinks what I said,” Phillip said. “That he got caught in a squall and drowned. So probably other people will too.”

Brandon nodded into his skin. His mouth was a soft damp circle against Phillip’s neck where he was breathing unsteadily.

“They might not find anything,” Phillip said. “The boat’s been under for so long now.”

“Yeah,” said Brandon. “Yeah, maybe.” He tightened his grip a little. Phillip could feel his heart beating between them. “Anyway they can’t—even if they find something, they can’t do anything right away. There would have to be another investigation.” He was trembling. “We still have some time left.”

Phillip just closed his eyes. Stroked the short ends of Brandon’s hair. They stood like that a long time, holding each other. Breathing together and clinging desperately to each other like the last survivors drifting unmoored on the vestiges of some violent shipwreck.

~

The day of the inquest dawned a sort of grayish sludge—the air thick, unmoving. On the wireless they were saying it was going to rain. When Phillip woke he found Brandon standing at the bathroom sink staring at his reflection with the haunted, hollow expression of someone stepping off the gallows. He walked up to him; he wrapped his arms around the warm, bare skin of his waist. He kissed his shoulder, rested his cheek there, and closed his eyes.

“Did you sleep?”

“Not much…” Brandon rested his hand on top of Phillip’s. He huffed out a tired sound. “I was supposed to take you to Waveland,” he said. “To see my mother and Rooster again, and the house, and the town, and—”

“You will,” Phillip said. “When this is over.”

Brandon didn’t answer. After a moment he dropped his head; Phillip felt his muscles shift with the movement. His fingers tightened against Phillip’s. When Phillip shifted his free hand upwards over Brandon’s chest he could feel his heart going twice as fast as normal.

 _When this is over…_ He understood it was dangerous to think that way, to make plans, because there was no real certainty that Brandon would come out of this. After all Rupert had been very powerful with a lot of powerful rich friends who could easily sway any inquest in their favor. Brandon’s richness wouldn’t matter in that instance because if the boat builder found what he was sure to find then Brandon would be convicted of murder and put through a real trial the result of which would be that he would go to jail for life or be hanged. But Phillip also had to think about a potential after because he knew Brandon needed him. And that if they survived this it would not be like before with the secrecy and the unspoken misery and as such Phillip needed to be prepared to finally, for perhaps the first time in his life, be truly happy.

He pressed another kiss to Brandon’s shoulder. Brandon sighed very quietly. Phillip looked up and Brandon was watching at him in the mirror. Their eyes met like tectonic plates. Eventually, carefully, Phillip extracted himself:

“Brush your teeth,” he said, gently. “I’ll go make us some pancakes.”

~

They neither of them were able to eat much—Brandon’s mouth was thin and he stared out of the window unspeaking at the gray sky with the sun showing through in places in weak pale light. Despite this when they went outside to get into Brandon’s car the air was as oppressive as it had been the day of the party—like moving through dissolved water. Brandon drove most of the way there with his hand clasped tightly around Phillip’s knee. It was not the same courthouse where they’d been married. As they walked in through the great wooden doors they found Ardoin already waiting for them.

“I was able to keep the press out,” he said, “and most of your—friends.”

Phillip felt Brandon’s hand twitch in his at the way Ardoin said ‘friends’. As though perhaps he knew—

“They’ll just ask you and the captain of the trawler a few questions first,” he said, “and then the boat builder—just to get an idea of what kind of condition the boat was in when he inspected it. And then that’s all, and you two can get out of here.” He shook his head a little; glanced around like he thought someone was listening. “To tell you the truth, I don’t see the point in any of this. We all know you had nothing to do with Rupert’s death. It was just a very unfortunate thing that you misidentified his body, and that the boat was dredged up by accident. If I could spare you the whole thing—”

“It’s all right,” said Brandon. He was keeping his expression carefully blank. “I just want to get it over with. Where are we supposed to go?”

Ardoin led them down a short hall into a small room. There were not enough windows—even with all of them open and screened—and despite the multitude of fans working doggedly the air was sluggish and sticky. Phillip could already feel the hair at the back of his neck damp with sweat as he headed with Brandon towards the front row of chairs. Janet and Kenneth were sitting a few rows back, looking flushed about their faces—she was fanning herself with one of those foldout fans printed with Chinese lettering.

“We heard them discussing it, that they were going to do this,” said Janet. “While we were all at the house. So we decided to come and provide, you know, moral support.” Her mouth twitched a little. She rested her hand for a moment on top of Brandon’s. There was something very deeply sad in her eyes which Phillip recognized from other times he’d seen her and which now he thought about it was almost irrefutable proof that she Knew.

“It’s an incredibly hard thing,” said Kenneth. “I’m sorry, Brandon.”

Brandon nodded a little. Then he and Phillip sat in the chairs in front of them. Phillip wanted to talk to him, just to say something—he settled for resting his head on his shoulder until the coroner came in with the boat builder and the captain of the trawler and the doctor who had confirmed through whatever processes that it was in fact Rupert laying there on the cabin floor. Then the inquest began.

For a while it felt if not exactly friendly then certainly less tense than Phillip had expected. It was the air in the room that was the worst part of it, like another person sitting on Phillip’s arms, fingers nestling in his hair, crawling beneath his suit. The doctor answered the coroner’s questions—yes, I can confirm it was Mr. Cadell, that’s Rupert Everett Cadell, age fifty-two—and then the captain after him, and then it was Brandon’s turn. The questions the coroner asked him were rote—did you ever consider at any time that the body you uncovered in Bay St. Louis was not that of your deceased husband? do you know how he might have gotten trapped like that with his experience?—and Phillip watched Brandon answer them all quite calmly, almost gently, with his hand flexing a little against the side of the table at which he stood. It was in the middle of the question _did you see the body yourself this time; can you confirm with the doctor that it was in fact Rupert Cadell at the bottom of the lake?_ that the door to the inquest room opened and David walked in. His hair was messy as though he’d just woken up and his cheeks were flushed with the heat. He sat ungracefully in the back and sent Phillip a look. He was almost smiling. Somewhere deep in his chest the creature stirred for the first time in days.

Brandon glanced at him for a moment, shaken out of his concentration; a furrow appeared between his eyebrows, and Phillip thought, god, please don’t say anything… But then he looked back at the coroner, and he said:

“Yes, he was wearing our… the wedding ring he picked out. I r-recognized it. It was him,” in that same quiet tone he’d been using, and the coroner nodded, and let him go. He walked back to sit beside Phillip and immediately from his jacket withdrew a cigarette. He was shaking as he lit it.

Cormier, the boat builder, was called up next. He was a tall, thin man with sallow skin and hair paled by his hours in the sun. He swore on the Bible to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and then he took his seat beside the coroner.

“You were acquainted with Mr. Cadell during his life?”

“Yes, sir. I knew him from when he was still in college. He’d grown up in that house, you know, on the lake, and he was well acquainted with the shrimping industry by the time I’d met him. Finest shrimper I ever met, in fact—”

“Mr. Cormier, we are only interested in the facts here, not in reminiscences—”

“Yes, sir, sorry.” Cormier cleared his throat. Then he said, “Well, as I said, Rupert was a fine shrimper, but he wanted something he could go out in himself, just for his own pleasure. So he had me convert this old boat he found somewhere in France, and every year after he’d send her to me to be looked over before the sailing season began.”

“And you looked her over in the spring of ’37?”

“Yes, sir. I fitted her; she was sound. I told Rupert to have a fine summer. When I heard he had drowned I was shocked. I hadn’t had a single thing to do with it, I had checked that boat over and she was in excellent condition when she left my shipyard—”

“Mr. Cormier—”

“Sorry, sir.”

Brandon was smoking his cigarette and watching Cormier with restless eyes. The creature was pacing in Phillip’s chest, back and forth, back and forth. He could hardly breathe for it, and for the stifled air in the room.

“Mr. Cormier,” gentling his tone, clearly trying to get him back on track, “had Mr. Cadell ever had any sort of accident with the boat prior to that night?”

“No, sir. As I said he was well acquainted with the shrimping industry, and he’d grown up beside the lake. He knew how to handle himself in the water.”

“But if there was an unexpected storm, and Mr. Cadell had been caught in the rain with low visibility—”

“No, sir. Not in a solidly made boat like that one, and certainly not with the knowledge he had of boats.” Cormier’s voice had taken on an edge Phillip didn’t really like. He wanted to reach for Brandon’s hand except that he thought it would look too obvious.

“All right,” said the coroner. “Well, you have established that you ensured the boat was sound the night he took it out—likely Mr. Cadell made a mistake, perhaps didn’t check everything as thoroughly as he ought, the way people are wont to do when used to a certain routine, and that one mistake was all he needed to make.”

“Excuse me,” said Cormier, shifting in his seat, “but that’s not all.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I inspected the boat after they’d raised her, I found several inconsistencies to her appearance as to how I’d seen her last in Rupert’s possession. Inconsistencies that went beyond just the usual, that she’d been at the bottom of the lake for a year, with fish living in her and mildew growing on her planking, that sort of thing.”

The coroner sighed. “What sort of inconsistencies, Mr. Cormier?”

“Well, the holes in her planking, for one thing,” said Cormier, and for a moment Phillip could not hear anything. His heart was trembling in his ears, blood rushing violently—the creature was bristling all along its spine and the claxons had started up again. Beside him he could feel Brandon go completely still—the way he did not even move the cigarette to his mouth.

“Holes?” the coroner repeated.

“Yes, sir. There were large holes driven through her planking. I say driven through because they had clearly been made from the inside. There was no way they were made naturally by anything at the bottom of the lake. They’d been done deliberately—and of course the seacocks were open.”

“Seacocks?” the coroner said, while Phillip tried to breathe, and to not even so much as glance Brandon’s way. He wondered what David was doing.

“Yes, sir. They’re never opened when you’re afloat; the boat would sink otherwise. And that’s just what happened—the seacocks were open, and those holes had been knocked into her sides, and the boat went down. Not in any squall, sir. Someone did all of that deliberately.”

The coroner was quiet. Brandon was quiet. The room seemed to have been suspended; Phillip could not even hear the sounds of the city outside through the open windows.

“Someone,” said the coroner, at last. “You believe Mr. Cadell did it himself? That he committed suicide?”

Cormier shook his head. “I wouldn’t have believed him capable of that, sir,” he said. “But then I’m not the best judge for that sort of thing.”

Phillip took a cigarette himself from Brandon’s pack. He wondered how much longer they had before it was all in the open. It was hard to believe that just this morning they’d sat at the kitchen island together with their pancakes and coffee, and by this evening Brandon might be in a holding cell for questioning—

“Thank you, Mr. Cormier,” said the coroner. “That’s all.” He looked at Brandon. “Mr. Shaw, would you come back up here, please?”

It seemed to take Brandon a long time to get up, and to walk to where the coroner sat. He stood looking at him with that same measured calm as before.

“Mr. Shaw,” said the coroner, “I apologize for having to call you back up.”

Brandon did not say anything. He just stood there watching the coroner. And Phillip sat watching him. He noticed Brandon was being very careful not to look in David’s direction.

“You heard what Mr. Cormier said about the holes, and about the seacocks.”

“Yes.”

“I wonder if you might have any further information to offer us about that.”

“No, sir.”

“You don’t know of any reason why those holes should be in the boat?”

Brandon cleared his throat. “Until about two minutes ago I didn’t even know the holes were there at all.”

“Nor why the seacocks should be open?”

“No.”

“Mr. Cadell never discussed anything with you about the opening of, of seacocks or anything else?”

“R-Rupert knew how to sail boats well enough that he would hardly have to consult m-my opinion on whether or not to open s-seacocks while he was out.” Brandon was starting to sound irritated, and Phillip couldn’t help wincing. Calm down, he wanted to say. Just keep your voice low like you were doing and he’ll stop asking questions.

The coroner was looking at Brandon oddly. “Mr. Shaw, please believe that you have the sympathy of everyone in this room. This is something no one should ever have to relive, particularly in such a gruesome and direct way. But I would appreciate if you would answer my questions with a simple yes or no, and sarcasm is not required in this court. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Brandon, tightly. The creature was biting its nails.

“Mr. Cadell was sailing alone, was he not?”

“Yes.”

“So there is no reason to suspect anyone other than Mr. Cadell to have driven the holes in the boat, and to have opened the seacocks while it was afloat?”

“No.”

No, it wasn’t the creature biting its nails, it was Phillip. He took a drag of Brandon’s cigarette to make himself stop. The smoke filtered through the impenetrable air. He rubbed at the back of his neck and his hand came away clammy with sweat.

“We can assume that Mr. Cadell’s motive behind such actions would be suicide, can we not.”

“Rupert w-wasn’t suicidal,” said Brandon, hoarse. He was holding onto the edge of the table; he looked sick.

“So you can think of no reason why your late husband would have wanted to kill himself?”

“No, I can’t.”

The coroner took a deep breath. “Then, Mr. Shaw, I must ask you a very personal and painful question.” He hesitated; he still had that odd look in his eyes. “Were you and Mr. Cadell happy in your marriage at the time of his death?”

Brandon’s jaw tensed. He bit down on his lower lip. He was staring at the ceiling. Behind him Phillip thought he heard David make some kind of noise, like a laugh. Otherwise the room was so still—so still. The coroner was watching Brandon. Ardoin was watching Brandon. Phillip reached up again to rub at the back of his neck where the sweat was trickling into his collar and itching at his skin. The ash of his cigarette fell a little on his pants. Brandon’s eyes flicked to him, tracking the movement of his arm. His fingers flexed.

“Mr. Shaw, do you need me to—”

“No, no, I—” Brandon sighed. Closed his eyes. Softly he said, “Rupert and I w-were as happy as any average m-married couple when he, when he died. There w-wasn’t anything—there wasn’t anything.”

“All right,” said the coroner, as Phillip exhaled too; he heard a strange ringing in his ears and wondered how long he hadn’t been breathing. “Thank you, Mr. Shaw. You may be seated.”

But as Brandon crossed to Phillip—his eyes damp and distraught, mouth thin, hands shaking—another voice rang out from the back of the room, clarion clear, almost mocking:

“Excuse me, but I believe I can testify as to who put the holes in the planking of that boat.”

It was David. He’d stood up in the back; his hair was still a mess on top of his head. His eyes were overbright with tears or else with drink. He was holding something, a leather book, and when Brandon’s gaze traveled to it his arm stiffened against Phillip’s.

The coroner frowned at him. “It’s David Kentley, isn’t it?” he said. “Mr. Cadell’s second cousin?”

“Yes,” said David. He was grinning, horribly; in the muted fluorescent lights the pallor of his skin was grayish. “I have vital evidence that will absolutely help in this inquest far more than anything else—except Cormier talking about those holes.”

The coroner made a gesture and Ardoin came forward to enter something into a log book. Then the coroner told David to come to the stand and swear on the Bible and sit for questioning. David was very nearly bouncing in his seat, holding the leather book against his knee and pushing his hair out of his eyes. Brandon was barely even breathing.

“All right,” said the coroner, once David had been sworn in. “Can you tell us to whom you were referring when you said, ‘I believe I can testify as to who put the holes in the planking of that boat.’”

“Yes, I can,” said David, in that same strange, lilting tone he’d used at Tujague’s, and at the house on the lake. His eyes which had been drifting over the room settled quite suddenly on Phillip; he was still smiling, and for a moment Phillip saw it, the same flash of cruelty in his mouth as in all the pictures of Rupert.

Then David said, “It’s a lovely name, really, just rolls off the tongue: Brandon Reginald Shaw,” and at once there came a great outburst from everyone, even Cormier, so that the coroner had to raise his hand and call for silence. Brandon meanwhile was sitting very still beside Phillip with his hand just over his mouth. Phillip had put his cigarette out against the side of the chair; he was gripping Brandon’s hand, he did not care who saw.

The coroner began, “Mr. Shaw has already testified he doesn’t know how those holes could have come into the planking—”

“Brandon isn’t going to readily confess to murder, is he,” David interrupted, and settled back a little in his chair, folding his arms across his chest, smug.

“All right, Mr. Kentley.” The coroner was frowning again, looking from Brandon to David. “What is your proof?”

David held up the leather book. At last Phillip caught a glimpse of its cover; it had gold embossed lettering upon it. From this distance Phillip could not read what it said, but clearly Brandon could, because he came halfway off the chair before seeming to realize what a monumental error that would be; with difficulty he sat straining and taut all along his spine staring at David, at the book in his hands. He said:

“How in the hell do you have that?” and his voice was very sharp.

David grinned again. “Why should you care if you’ve got nothing to hide?”

“It’s Rupert’s,” Brandon snapped. “He was _my_ husband.”

“And he was my cousin,” said David—he shrugged, careless, but Phillip could see the anger in his eyes. “I was at the funeral too, Brandon, and afterwards at the house, when we were dividing his smaller goods up between us—no one wanted this, so I took it. Pity you didn’t see it first, you could’ve burned it—”

“I d-don’t have anything to hide, like you s-said, so why should I—”

“Full of very interesting information—”

“Mr. Kentley,” the coroner interrupted; he was pinching the bridge of his nose. “And Mr. Shaw. This is not—we are not here for the drama or the spectacle of the thing. This is a very serious accusation you have laid out, Mr. Kentley, and I’d like to get to the bottom of it in an orderly and timely manner. Now, what is that thing, that book you are holding?”

David ran his thumb along the spine of it. “Rupert’s engagement diary,” he said.

A low shocked murmur ran through the room. Phillip pulled out another cigarette one-handed.

“In the last entry he made he was scheduled to see his psychiatrist,” said David, opening the book. From where he was sitting Phillip could just see how dog-eared the page was, as though David had looked through and at it many times, as though perhaps he had rehearsed this exact moment, even before he knew about the boat and the body resting among the silt and the weeds at the bottom of the lake…

“He didn’t have a psychiatrist,” Brandon said, still in that sharp cold voice. The coroner glanced at him with his eyebrows a little raised as if in chastisement for speaking out.

David looked at Brandon. “Yes he did,” he said, equally cold, “you didn’t know every single thing about him,” and he showed the diary to the coroner.

The tired pale eyes flicked over the page. “Mr. Kentley, I don’t see any mention in here of a psychiatric visit,” he said. Then, reading: “Nine a.m., hair with Maxwell. Eleven-thirty, lunch at Galatoire’s. One p.m., Metairie—”

“That’s it,” David interrupted, pointing, ignoring the look the coroner gave him. “That’s the psychiatrist. He hid it under a code name. He always used to say he was going to Metairie if he was really going to see the doctor. He told me that once.”

Brandon was frowning at his hands, at the cigarette which still sat nearly untouched between his fingers. Phillip remembered he’d said Rupert went on business trips frequently to Metairie.

“Why would Mr. Cadell have felt the need to hide his psychiatric visits under a code name?”

David took a breath. He looked again at Brandon, that cruel twist still at the corner of his mouth. “Because he was seeing the psychiatrist about their sham of a marriage,” he said. Brandon’s head shot up and David laughed, elbow on the table, shaking his head. “He didn’t want you to find out and get upset.” David grinned at the others, Cormier and Ardoin, even Kenneth and Janet. “He was in love with me, you know. We’d been sleeping together for years before Brandon came along. I don’t care if all of you know it; none of you matter, anyway. He was seeing the psychiatrist to figure out how to deal with Brandon’s bullshit—”

“Let’s keep it civil, Mr. Kentley—”

“—until he could get a divorce. But all of that got stopped that one night, this last night he has marked here. And I’ll tell you why, I’ll tell you what happened. He saw his psychiatrist, he decided he’d had enough, he drove to the house on Pontchartrain, he got Brandon to meet him there, he told him he loved me and wanted a divorce, and in the manner of fucking Othello, Brandon killed him.”

The air, the creature, the others in the room—everything was completely still. The only sound was that of Brandon’s unsteady breathing, and the plunge-rush of Phillip’s heart in his ears. The coroner was staring at David, disbelief plain on his face—except there was the smallest hint of doubt in his eyes. He kept glancing seemingly without meaning to down at the engagement diary.

“This is absurd,” Brandon said, quietly. His hand shook as he lifted the cigarette to his lips.

“Is it?” said David, and smiled at him.

Abruptly the coroner shook his head a little, as though coming out of some kind of reverie. “What is your proof of this, Mr. Kentley, beyond your own speculations? Who was Mr. Cadell’s psychiatrist?”

David shrugged. Still smiling. “I don’t know,” he said. “He wanted his privacy in some respects; he never told me. And I damn well think he deserved it, with that one—” gesturing at Brandon—“always snooping around in his shit…”

The coroner sighed. Briefly he closed his eyes; then he took the engagement diary and flipped through the pages of it, eyes scanning the words. When he looked up again Phillip could see he’d come to a decision and he squeezed Brandon’s hand as tightly as he could. It was only a matter of time now. He wondered how long they’d have together before Brandon was officially placed into police custody. If Ardoin would stand by him, or if he’d side with Rupert’s memory, as everyone else was likely to do. He wondered if Mrs. Shaw would hire Brandon a good lawyer. He wondered—

“We’ll have to postpone the inquest,” the coroner was saying, “pending further investigation. Sheriff Ardoin, will you please go see if you can find out who Mr. Cadell’s psychiatrist was—”

“There’s no need for that,” said a quiet voice behind them. “It was me,” and Phillip turned his head a little so he could see the moment Kenneth stood, smoothing his suit, and walked to the front. Janet was watching him, her expression unreadable. Brandon’s cigarette was ashing out against the fine fabric of his pants. His mouth was slack; his fingers loose in Phillip’s grasp. His brow was very tight as though he was adding certain things up inside his head. David looked like someone had hit him.

Very hastily Kenneth was sworn in by a stunned Ardoin. He stood beside David’s chair looking uncomfortable and casting occasional vaguely apologetic glances Brandon’s way.

“Well, Dr. Lawrence,” said the coroner, who himself was unable to keep the surprise out of his voice, “can you supply a motive for—any of this, Mr. Cadell’s suicide, or what Mr. Kentley is accusing—”

Kenneth shook his head once, very sharply. “I can provide a motive for Mr. Cadell’s suicide, yes,” he said. Then, pausing: “I want it understood, I’ve kept my mouth shut all this time because of doctor-patient confidentiality. Not out of any ulterior motives. But this is a special case, with the patient already deceased, and the information necessary to clear Bran—Mr. Shaw’s name.”

“Of course,” said the coroner, as David scoffed into his sleeve.

Kenneth glared at him. It was a shocking emotion on his face; it occurred to Phillip that of course Kenneth must hate David, too, David who came onto his pregnant wife, David who helped Rupert cheat on Kenneth’s friend—

“Mr. Cadell was very seriously ill,” he said, “or anyway he was on the way to becoming as such.”

Brandon made a low noise. Phillip didn’t dare look at him.

“When he started coming to me he had complaints—I talked it over with him for a few visits, his marital problems, his symptoms, and then I referred him to a doctor who was actually practicing in Metairie.”

“Of course,” David blurted, his voice trembling, “that’s why he wrote Metairie as a code word; he didn’t want anyone to think he was going to see _you_ in a dump like Destrehan—”

“Quiet, Mr. Kentley,” the coroner snapped. “Continue, Dr. Lawrence.”

Still glaring a little at David Kenneth said, “When he came back he had the results. He was quite shaken. It was the only time I’ve ever seen him—like that. He asked me, you know, what were the options, and I told him, and then he left. That was the last time I ever saw him; I heard about his presumed death the next week and I was shocked, like everyone else… and when I heard Brandon had found his body at Bay St. Louis I wanted to say something but I couldn’t—”

“What was wrong with him?” That was Brandon, barely whispering. He’d stubbed his cigarette out too on the leg of his chair.

Kenneth cleared his throat. He still looked apologetic. “Early onset dementia,” he said. “He’d begun forgetting things, just little things like where his keys were, or the exact steps of a recipe, but he knew. With his mind the way it was… He knew he couldn’t keep his job at the publishing house for long once it began to progress. And since there’s no real way of knowing how fast the disease will take over—” He bit his lower lip. “Anyway it was very unfortunate, how it all ended up.”

“Yes,” said the coroner softly. He seemed as stunned as the rest of them. But Phillip was not watching him. He was watching David. David, who looked a bit like he might be on the verge of suffering a breakdown. There was a strange blank look in his eyes; his hand kept going to his hair and then fluttering almost absently back to his lap. After a moment he stood; he shook Kenneth’s hand. Then he drifted down the aisle and out the door. No one bothered trying to stop him.

“What did he say,” Brandon asked, still in that quiet unvoice. “When you told him about the, the progression of it. How long he would have and all. What did he do.”

Kenneth frowned a little, thinking. “He smiled a little, in an odd sort of way, like he had a private joke he was thinking about… like since he’d known about it prior to coming he’d reconciled himself to the whole thing. And oh yes, I remember—when I said it was uncertain how long he’d have, he said, ‘Oh no, Doctor. It isn’t.’”

There was silence. Phillip could feel someone looking at him—not Brandon, who was staring straight ahead of him at the wall opposite, but perhaps Janet. And he could hear the shuffling of Cormier and Ardoin and the doctor who had confirmed it was Rupert’s body in the boat. After a moment the coroner said:

“All right, thank you, Dr. Lawrence. You’ve been a great help.” He stood, stacking some papers on his desk. “Will you be able to provide us with a copy of your files?”

“Of course,” said Kenneth, nodding. He shook the coroner’s hand; he walked back to take Janet’s. The coroner dismissed them, and together Phillip, Brandon, Janet, and Kenneth walked out into the oppressive covered sunlight. Down the street Phillip heard a jazz group begin playing the opening notes of Rhapsody in Blue.

~

For several moments they stood unspeaking beneath the eaves of the courthouse. David was waiting at the foot of the steps and now as they approached he came back up, looking distinctly uneasy. His skin was that same strange, unhealthy gray it had been inside.

“Dementia,” he said, looking at each of them in turn as though hoping one of them would disprove the fact. “My god.”

No one said anything. Brandon’s hand was still tight in Phillip’s.

“Does it run in the family?” David asked, and touched his hair again. “Does anyone know?”

No one said anything. Phillip saw Kenneth and Janet exchange a look of very great annoyance.

“I remember a few times he complained to me that he couldn’t think straight in the mornings,” David said, his voice rising a little in pitch, “but I never thought anything of it—I told him no one can think straight in the mornings, and I teased him about being middle-aged, but if I’d known—” He stared at Kenneth. “All this time, you knew.” He shook his head a little; Phillip could see him trying to laugh. “You sneaky son of a bitch.”

Kenneth frowned. “As I said in the courtroom I’m not allowed to divulge that kind of information—”

“Oh, all right, all right,” David said, waving his hand. “Jesus. It was just a joke. None of you—” But then he cut himself off, staring over Brandon’s shoulder, and when Phillip turned he saw Ardoin coming out. He looked very tired.

“It’s settled,” he said. “The inquest is over.” He clasped Brandon on the shoulder. “You can put this all behind you now, or anyway try to.”

Brandon nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

David said, “I can’t, I don’t think I’m up to making that drive all the way back to Baton Rouge, not this late in the afternoon.” He squinted up at the clouds. “I think I’ll stay one more night in the old house.” Without waiting for any kind of response he turned and headed down the steps and out of sight towards the parking lot. Brandon rolled his eyes:

“It’s not that much of a drive,” he muttered, but it was half-hearted. Phillip could see he was only just holding himself together by the barest thread of whatever had kept him going the past year.

“Brandon,” said Kenneth. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Brandon shook his head. “I understand, it’s all right.” He reached out with his free hand to shake Kenneth’s. “Thank you…” He trailed off. But Phillip could see Kenneth knew what he meant. And he wondered again just how much else both Kenneth and Janet knew or at least suspected about the whole thing. Several minutes later Kenneth and Janet left, and so did Ardoin, and then it was just Brandon and Phillip standing on the courthouse steps, with the heat searing into their skin, and the scent of rain heavy in the clouds. Brandon’s shoulders kind of slumped; he leaned back against the wall. He said:

“W-Will you—could you d-drive back to the house? I’m n-not… I can’t…” He stared with desperation into Phillip’s eyes. In response Phillip took his keys from his jacket, and his cigarettes. He lit one for Brandon as they stood there and pressed it gently into his mouth. Together they walked to Brandon’s car and started for home.

“He wanted me to kill him,” Brandon said, as they turned onto Canal. “That’s why he t-taunted me like that at the very end, that’s why he s-said what he did about taking on a n-new boy. That’s why he was smiling when he fell…”

“Brandon…” Phillip murmured.

“I w-want to go to Waveland tonight,” he said. “I—we can’t wait. I h-have to get out of here.”

“All right.”

“We’ll p-pack and have supper, and then we’ll g-go.”

“All right.”

Brandon was staring out unseeing at the street, the multitude of colors, the late afternoon sun splashed like thrown liquid chalk upon the asphalt where it had broken temporarily free from the clouds. “David doesn’t know where we live,” he said, “s-so we don’t have to worry about our house.”

Phillip nodded. He turned onto Royal. They drove down past the shops, past Mrs. Shaw’s place, with its windows darkened, the shades drawn.

“He was a goddamn coward,” said Brandon suddenly, as they began to make the turn onto Esplanade. “He c-couldn’t live with the idea of losing his mind, so he t-tricked me into—into—” He hit his open palm with his fist. His jaw was clenched.

“I don’t regret it,” he said, fierce. “Not one s-second of it.”

Phillip shook his head. “You shouldn’t,” he said, pulling into their usual parking space and cutting the ignition. For a moment they just sat staring at each other. Then Brandon began to laugh. It was that strange staccato laugh he’d used in Miami—caught guttering candle flame. Phillip could not tell if he was crying, but he took Brandon’s face in his hands all the same. He pressed their foreheads together, and then their mouths. He could taste the salt of Brandon’s tears. His laughter faded; he reached up and curled his fingers through the ends of Phillip’s hair. After a time they got out of the car and went inside.

~

In the evening when the sun had at last gone down below the horizon they ate a quick supper—their leftover pancakes from that morning, and some sausages Brandon wanted to get rid of. Then they took their suitcases down to the car. Brandon laughed when Phillip packed the books he’d bought so many months ago to spite his aunt. And his sheet music, too, because Mrs. Shaw had a piano at her house in Mississippi.

“When we come back,” Brandon said, as he and Phillip lifted their suitcases into the trunk of the car. “I promise you, everything will be different.” Indeed already he looked better, healthier. He was smiling when he turned off the lights, locked the house door. He squeezed Phillip’s knee as they sat together in the car, kissed the corner of his mouth. On the radio they were playing Artie Shaw, the seductive creeping notes like something crawling out of a sewer.

Brandon drove them out of the city with his elbow as usual sticking out the driver’s side window, trailing cigarette smoke into the oncoming night. The air had never lost its heaviness; now as they crossed onto the causeway Phillip saw a flash of lightning in the distance. Brandon tossed his cigarette, rolled up his window. Even in the half-dark Phillip could see a strange look on his face.

“What is it?”

Brandon shook his head. “I don’t—I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said. “I feel like maybe I forgot something at the house. But I can’t have.”

“It’s just leftover nerves from earlier,” said Phillip, although the creature had perked up its head. “It’ll pass.”

But as they drove into the gloaming the feeling began to come over him, too. Inside the car with the air as still as it was it became difficult to breathe; as such Phillip rolled his own window down just a crack, so that they heard the rush of the tires singing on the highway. The calls of the birds settling down for sleep in the marshes. And a strange, faint crackling in the distance. A light on the horizon which grew steadily closer as they drove on east. Artie Shaw’s horns screaming on the radio.

It was dark enough now that they could not see much past Brandon’s headlights. Overhead the clouds at last opened with a shudder. But not even the breaking of the rain could mask the scent of burning cypress as it floated across the lake.


End file.
